Cenex launched a detailed analysis of the costs and opportunities of Vehicle to Grid (V2G) charging of electric vehicles (EVs).
The report from the technology group found that bidirectional V2G charging, which sees vehicles provide energy from their batteries to the grid when plugged in, delivers greater value and revenues than unidirectional Smart Charging.
The potential value which can be earned by V2G is highly dependent on the customer, with certain customer types seeing much greater value than others. However, the average V2G chargepoint could generate £186 of additional annual value compared to unmanaged charging, through a combination of energy bill savings and additional revenue from grid services. When compared to unmanaged charging, Smart Charging captures between 40% to 80% of the value of V2G.
One of the findings shows that these revenues increase the longer vehicles spend plugged in. This means that V2G chargepoints where EVs are connected for 75% or more of the time could generate £436 per annum of savings, compared to unidirectional Smart Charging. Based on an assumed one million EVs in the UK with this plug-in behaviour, this group alone has the potential to generate an annual revenue of £436m.
“Most electric vehicles (EVs) today offer uni-directional charging. Once you’ve drawn power from the grid and put it into your battery, that’s where it stays until it runs out,” said Cenex.
“This lack of flexibility means you inevitably end up storing more charge than you need, which leaves a huge amount of energy sitting unused in EV batteries across the country.
“In fact, recent studies indicate that storing too much energy in a battery can even damage its health, meaning it won’t last as long as if you look after it properly. In addition, as more people move to EVs in future, with the majority charging them during peak times like arriving at work in the morning or getting home in the evening, we’ll see more spikes in energy consumption and more pressure on the grid.
“As long as you are plugged in, your V2G charger will make it’s own decisions around how to operate based on the things you’ve told it are important.”