Electric Vehicle to Grid Technology Explained 

For a more detailed explanation of how vehicle-to-grid works, including some nice analogies to describe grid frequency and inertia check out the video we made for the ANU TV channel here ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mG2uz5SuYjg.html And the Kickstarter link for Bjorn's book Amy's Balancing Act: kck.st/3qBJjwU

Fun and informative as usual Rosie! A few quick points: 1) Your guest is partially correct that power (C rate relative to the battery's C rating) during charge and discharge is somewhat related to battery degradation. But so too is time spent at high voltage, i.e. high state of charge (SOC). If a V2G scheme holds your car at a higher SOC than you would ordinarily do, it's degrading your pack prematurely relative to just staying away from high SOC, which smart EV owners are already doing. They charge to full just before they leave on a long trip, and stay away from high SOC the rest of the time. 2) All battery cycling causes degradation too. You can waffle and say that it doesn't cause enough degradation to worry about, and you might be right- but that depends on points like 1) above plus on how often you do it and the C rate you do it at, and what fraction of full pack charge you use each time. 3) Installing 50-150 kW fast chargers just to do V2G ain't gonna happen- it would be too costly. So you're talking about perhaps Level 2 (3-7 kW) connections. At those power levels, and assuming that the events you're trying to protect against on the grid really are only 15 minutes in maximum duration, you're really not talking about the batteries having much energy capacity. 19 million cars x 6 kW is an absolute sh*tload of power, either as demand response (charging which starts or stops when the grid system operator wants it to) or as a virtual power plant- 114 GW! But if it only goes on for 1/4 hour worst case, it's a much more modest 28.5 GWh of energy available. Also a small fraction of a typical car's battery capacity being used- 1.5 kWh per car, or perhaps 5% of the charge in a 60 kWh pack in a worst case event. Doing 5% cycling on a battery pack a dozen or two times per year is really not something I'd be worried about as a car owner- I wouldn't be too worried about how much that was damaging my pack. I also wouldn't be too worried about who made the revenue from what could be a small number of very high value kWh. Do that DAILY however and I would be concerned! I'd want money for that, for sure. In summary, I agree that V2G and even moreso- opportunity charging, i.e. charging automatic start/stop based on the needs of the grid operator- is exciting and interesting. And having the ability to provide emergency response from all those EV batteries? Priceless. I had that possibility in the back of my mind when designing my car conversion project back in 2014- it meant I could run my house's critical systems for days during a prolonged power outage just on my car's battery. Making that "official" by demanding that capability be installed in all new OEM EVs makes a lot of sense to me. It's just the grid connection for cars to supply energy to the broader grid that needs a bit more thought.

This one is a source of endless frustration for me too! I have a huge battery sat on my drive doing nothing the whole time I'm at home. It might be worth mentioning that current V2G technology is only supported by the Japanese Chademo connector standard. Most manufacturers have instead adopted the CCS charging standard outside of Japan and China, which unfortunately doesn't support two way power transfer. Therefore most electric cars do not support V2G with the notable exception of the Nissan Leaf and a few others from Japanese manufacturers. Meanwhile I'm drawing fossil fuel power from the grid to run my oven at peak time!

Maybe I missed something, but it seems that V2G in this video is meant to soak up excess energy and give it back to the grid in times of need so fossil fuel peaker plants are not needed. I was picturing V2G to help replace non-renewable entirely so that no fossil fuel power plants would be needed. There is a study by RethinkX that says that we can have a fully renewable energy system if we have 3x-5x renewable generation and 1x battery. I think V2G from all EVs can help achieve this (instead of power companies having to purchase batteries themselves). Comment on this Rosie?

I love your channel! Topic suggestion: does nuclear energy has a part to play, or does renewables + storage are so fast to build, cheap and reliable than nuclear is now nothing else than a waste of time and resources? For instance Slovenian has just given the GO for the construction of a new nuclear power plant. Are they living in the past or is nuclear still needed for countries with little hydro resources? I hope it is not too specific a topic. I'd love to know the answer though. Once again, congratulations for your channel. Everything is right about it.

Thanks Rosie, great video. I’m on a V2G trial with my Nissan Leaf in the UK. It’s been going for a month now and so far so good. I haven’t had an electricity bill yet so I’m not sure how it’s working with price compared to what i used to pay. To make matters more interesting I also have a PV array which is also feeding into the grid and I’m also on a flexible tariff in the UK called Agile Octopus so it’s difficult to get a grasp of the sum of it all but I’m sure it will all even out in the long run. So long as I’m not massively out of pocket and the trial is a success then I’ll be really proud to have been part of the solution to grid balancing using renewables and EVs.

I really appreciate you talking about this subject. You did a great job , keep kicking ass.

It is a very logical idea. The way to make it work is first and foremost to properly incentivize EV owners, give them control over their level of desired participation, up to and including opting out entirely. Owners need to be able to select their degree of participation at each and every time they connect. If you’re recharging during a long trip, you’ll probably be willing to pay more for a fast, uninterrupted charge. If you’re car will be sitting at work or in the garage, you can simply tell it when you want it to be fully charged, and let it participate in frequency support along the way. The compensation needs to more than make up for the potentially longer charge times and, yes, the decreased battery life. Do not lie about that as otherwise this great idea will get a big black eye in the marketplace. Always be forthcoming. It is an inescapable fact that batteries have cycle lives, and while frequency support service will not significantly consume battery life on the whole, it would be dishonest to state that it has zero effect. I’ll bet that the manufacturers who are warrantying their cars’ batteries would agree.

Rosie, I thought I saw a pic of PM Morrison questioning whether an EV can tow a boat or trailer. Really? Maybe you have heat like us here in Nevada that affects people's minds! lol Since the 1970s, the primary form of rail propulsion has been diesel-electric where the drive motors are electric but the electricity comes from diesel generators instead of batteries but more recently they use battery backup. So electric motors can pull a 100 car freight train uphill but not a boat behind a car? Let's not get into electrically powered multi-ton cargo ships. It seems your politicians are as slow as ours.

I remember Sydkraft in Sweden looking at V2G in the late 1980’s. I think their focus was more on scheduled use of EV batteries, to compensate for daily variations in energy demand. That coupled with a guarantee to give back a fully charged car at 5pm when you need to go home.

Horse and cart thinkers can not understand how big the stupendously expensive grid has to be expanded to, in a no fossil fueled world. Houses are not expensive in Sydney if you don't have to pay for the land. Electricity was only more expensive after they repaired the grid. Not building new, just some fixing of the existing. The grid expansion is the killer cost. The V2G avoids grid expansion costs, 5 times bigger than the original will take decades and decades and massive amounts of national wealth. The grid is fragile because it is built to minimum economic and engineering standards. Stupid people don't understand. Unload the national grid by removing the 50% supplied to the homes. And then, have the homes and buildings supply the remaining 50% to the remaining grid demand will save billions and billions. Somebody do the maths beside me. V2G and rooftop solar PV is the killer combination BECAUSE OF THE EXPENSIVE NATIONAL ELECTRICITY GRID INFRASTRUCTURE and its expansion..

Dear Rosie, great interview I presume that they are currently using Nissan Leafs in their trails. CCS type charge are yet to finalise a standard for bidirectional charging I think and that is why we are not seeing other brands of EV involved. If I am incorrect please let me know as I want to pull some power out of my BMW i3

Some people were concerned that the V2G will be keeping the EV's battery at a higher than usual 80% of SOC. As well as putting the EV's battery through more charge/discharge cycling than it would otherwise experience. I think these are legit concerns. However, the EV industry is turning to iron based LiFePO4 (LFP) batteries which do not mind being stored at 100% and can be more deeply discharged closer to 0% as well. Basically no need for the NMC "20% rule". LFP also has a much higher charge/discharge cycle at over 2750 cycles before the battery degrades to 80%. This is much larger than NMC's 750 cycles before degrading to 80% capacity. Also LFP chemistry is less prone to thermal runaway fires. All of this happily coincides with V2G technology! NOTE: LFP does have both less power density and energy density compared to NMC. But LFP's wider safer SOC range helps offset the lower energy density. With the lower power density, the LFP battery packs are being built at 800-volt vs the current 400-volt battery pack to help offset the power density. This will also change the ESC and brushless motor windings (kv) to match the higher voltage. One example is the BYD Blade LFP pack which will actually be used in the upcoming Tesla model 3's as well as many of BYD's own vehicles.

Mr apologise for not finding your video earlier. Rooftop solar PV systems would supply excess electricity daily. 20million vehicles and 20million buildings in Australia. A perfect balance of storage and generation for Australia. 20million buildings are connected to the national electric power grid.

This sounds really promising Rosie. Thanks for doing this video. Very interesting!

The world's biggest v2g trial by output 1 MW is at Northumberland Park, London with 28 electric double decker buses with a plan for 700 ev buses to be used in the future, if 9,000 plus London buses are used for v2g they could power 150,000 homes, there are two trials of v2g school buses in the USA, 480,000 school buses are in use in america. The world's biggest v2g trial by number of vehicles will be 64 e500 cars in Italy by Fiat. Nuvve research with Honda foung v2g only degraded the batteries by 2% after 8 yrs which was less than acceleration, fast charging and aging, which is low enough not to invalidate the battery warranty, Nissan, Mitsubishi and PSA also told Nuvve the same.

The Tesla home charger will not be necessary when the EV can talk to the grid. The EV and the grid will agree with the drivers instructions on reserve for next day driving. The weather report with be part of the daily grid strategy. All this is mind numbingly obvious now. Horse and cart thinking is dangerous.

It is available, Nissan offers a V2G/vehicle to house (V2H) or vehicle to vehicle (V2H) package to go with their Leaf. You can buy it today. However, I believe Nissan is only one so far, although some of the vehicles coming along offer high power mains outlets.

Mostly we need a charger spec so we can install future proof kit. Can I buy a V2G-ready charger yet? Preferably one with an open protocol spec and updateable open-source driver software i can integrate with the rest of my house. you also didn;t mention the huge missing bit which is that the CCS spec doesn't cover V2G yet and that 95% of new EVs. Only Chademo had this from the start and that's pretty much just leafs + Japan. So to say that the tech is 'ready' seems a little optimistic to me. We are currently selling hundreds of thousands of cars that aren't ready (although it may only be a software fix - you didn't get into this).

Don't forget oil refinery process being shrunk enormously. This will save a lot of energy. Try and calculate that and your demand drops.

I was a pre-order customer for the new fully electric VW ID.3, and was able to take part in a prototype test drive. Which was in its own way interesting, but even more interesting was the huge and very open Q&A session with the development team and their management. V2G came up quite a lot actually, mainly asked and actually demanded by the customers, and VW being very cagey. They stated quite openly though that the main problem is not the technology, that can be sorted out (the CCS standard has not yet V2G but it is in the pipeline), but rather the multi-party business model needed for a read grid based system, and even for a much simpler V2H system (Vehicle to Home) there are questions like for example battery warranty, interaction with the car owners utility company and so on. It seemed they were really interested in that from a technical point of view, but were extremely unsure about any of the many questions around the business side of things. Of course V2G and V2H are very logical extensions of the BEV ecosystem, especially in conjunction with a photovoltaic system at home.

Me, at first, wrote a load of bs about battery cycles. But the serious EV companies really have no problem with it. Tesla, for one, has always given more battery guarantees than necessary. The idéa of power storage in car batteries has been a good one, even from the beginning. Great to hear some engineers talk about it. And do keep in mind, there are so many city landscapes, in need of a few miles of transportation each day.

This really focuses on grid balancing in terms of fast frequency response but I think the mode I’d be really interested in is longer duration peak shaving/vehicle to house. In the UK 4-8pm roughly the demand shoots up, so do variable rate tariff prices and on the grid all the dirtiest generators come online. I think Aus has an equivalent rise as the sun sets and PV stops generating? So if you can say to your car, “you’re going to give me up to 7kW for the house between these times” then that’d be awesome, almost completely removes your demand from the grid. Or even you can earn some cash by putting any excess up to your 7kW (or whatever your charger is rated at) into the grid. You could set a minimum SOC to prevent the car emptying too far. Most houses wouldn’t use more than say...5kWh? in that time so should be easily manageable. Then you replen overnight on cheap rates. And if you’ve been using excess PV during the day to charge then even better. Obviously depends on your travel and plugging in regime, but this could def work. Indeed I think Octopus energy are trialling this or something similar in the UK now.

Another interesting video, thank you Rosie. The inertia of the power network generators is an important issue often overlooked by many commentators. The increasing penetration of renewables has tended to reduce the network inertia and this could become a concern if the level of penetration threatens to compromise network stability during faults. Power networks tend to operate with relatively high fault levels (corresponding to high inertia) in order to maintain high stability and reasonable power quality. This allows commercial and industrial customers with demanding loads such as large motors to work effectively without causing unacceptable amounts of disturbance to neighbouring customers. High fault levels also means that faults can be detected and disconnected quickly. Reducing system inertia can increase susceptibility to faults and having system inertia that is very low can risk widespread disturbance. I don't want to misrepresent what you said in the video about the relative inertial characteristics of large, centralised generation and distributed generation as proposed by V2G technology but it's definitely NOT the case that the relatively high inertia of large rotating machines is something to be regarded as undesirable or needing 'engineered out'. Like most solutions, there will be a role for generation sources that underpin system stability (big flywheels, if you like) and distributed sources that can help offset demand locally (small flywheels). The control systems for large rotating machines, coupled with the extremely fast fault clearance times required for the protective devices on transmission networks are very capable of dealing with network disturbances. In terms of V2G (or other distributed generation) responding to over-frequency (OF) or under-frequency (UF) events, clearly there **is** a role that can be played by these devices but I think there is a danger it could be over-played. The main hazard presented to the system is a severe UF event, usually initiated by the loss of one or more large generators due to failure of the genset itself or the circuit connecting it to the system. Thankfully these events are very rare (well, here in the UK they are very rare - I can't comment on other countries), however among the existing (UK) measures designed to respond to excessively low UF are low frequency demand disconnection (LFDD) devices that are (1) automatic, (2) distributed across the network and (3) essentially instantaneous with no programmed delay. Events triggering the operation of LFDD schemes couldn't be avoided by any amount of V2G implementation as the EV batteries and their charger/inverters would be likely to be disconnected as part of the process. National electricity network operators invariably have a statutory duty to do all they can to keep the system stable and operate within certain boundaries, hence the regulations that flow from this duty to ensure generators above a certain capacity are subject to central dispatch control. Having lots of potential energy stored in V2G installations is attractive but how could network operator planning and dispatch engineers incorporate any meaningful available capacity from a source that is, by design, capable of being connected and disconnected outside of their control? Over time, researchers and statisticians **may** be able to deduce that a certain percentage of V2G capacity is available at any given time of day, possibly following an availability curve. The question of whether the grid can accommodate large amounts of either EV charging or V2G installations is - like so many other videos dealing with this subject - dealt with at a 'macro' level, comparing the estimated total stored energy in V2G systems with overall network demand. Yes, smart charging would be necessary and I think EV manufacturers and vendors need to be more open by making it clear that the **availability** of charging at home **may** be restricted at certain times in any given 24-hour period due to the limitations of local low-voltage networks, rather than simply extolling the virtues of being able to export to 'the grid' as if it's as easy and repeatable as plugging in your kettle. Significant engineering challenges still exist with reconciling the additional loads presented by EV charging to low-voltage distribution networks that were designed and implemented to taper away from the local substation to the load. Although almost all of the very interesting and fertile discussion in this video centres around the monitoring and control of system frequency, the more prevalent issue for individual customers and distribution network operators of voltage control is not mentioned, even though it is of much greater relevance to low-voltage networks than network frequency. I hope to see advances in V2G technology and much greater adoption of it. I hope to adopt it too, eventually. However, I think there is a lot more R&D required before V2G or domestic renewables in general can be considered as having a significant role in frequency control.

Lots of good questions and information. Thank you for sharing all of it!

this is such a helpful video rosie! i've bookmarked this link to share whenever anyone asks some of those questions!

Rosie your videos are much appreciated but sometimes (occasionally) the sound quality is challenging. E.g., it was hard to hear some of the things Bjorn said - partly due to the variation in volume and partly his enunciation of course. But thank you again for your work :-)

Can you do an investigation about all the obstacles against this technology specific to the Australian (and NSW) situation, including EV makers that won't allow their vehicles to participate in V2G

I think in number 4 political inertia is the most important factor. Coal and natural gas still rule Australian politics. It took years to get settlement times reduced from 30 minutes to 5 minutes for electricity generators and they are still delaying it. Gas peaker plant operators who also operate non-peaker plants make large profits gaming the system with 30 minutes settlements. Batteries and 5-minute settlement will cost a lot of politically well-connected companies profits. Details are explained here reneweconomy.com.au/why-5-minute-settlement-will-make-such-a-difference-to-battery-storage-36772/

One of the problems is that we are capitalists. The grid is there for supply and generation companies to make profit. The grid doesn't exist primary as a provided service to the country. For example: Most cars stand idle most of the day and night. If you commute to work, plug in to provide grid capacity during the day, then drive home and hook in again, who pays/gets charged whilst you are connected to your employer's connection? The idea of whenever you are not driving you are providing part of a national battery capacity is great, but the need for profit will hinder the uptake.

The problem is simple when you consume electricity you pay a price, if you want to feedback the grid to support you only take 50% of the money. So it costs to support the grid, so yes technology exist but the government needs to step in to change the rules. Before the that it's a NO-NO

so hard to watch, when the lights use the bad pwm controllers :( a whopping 50c per light/powersuply was saved

Very good presentation. Bjorn was great. "It's part of the charm" is a great blooper. You'll have to add it to a future blooper compilation. 😂

Just noticed this video, thanks so much for answering why this isn't the fore most storage option. Like you I have shouted at many electricity storage videos, thinking the answer already exists V2G!! As an automotive engineer, I'm pleased to hear confirmed from people in the field that this is not a technical issue. IE Generators and vehicle OEM's need to find a way of working together.

This would be great especially for suburban vehicles where families have more than one vehicle, so there's a greater chance they'll have a spare vehicle always plugged in. Also as long as it's limited to 20% and 80% the battery degradation will be minimized. You could do a video on turquoise H2 production as we transition to cheaper green H2, companies like Graphene Manufacturing Group are making aluminum ion batteries for non-vehicle use using the pure carbon byproduct.

Excellent info.. I had not considered V2G, nor did understand the advantages of V2G quick response times verses inertial power generation. Great job keeping it simple for the rest of us!

It should be possible to do VAR stabilization of voltage as well if the charger is designed for the purpose.

I've been interested in this, hoping to put our puny 1st-gen Leaf battery to work (24kWh). It''s nearly twice our Powerwall. Unfortunately, the only hardware available here (setec-power 6kWh Chademo Inverter) is only compatible with 2013 and newer Leafs, and not at *all* with the Kia Chademo (so much for *standards*). Looks like we're going to have to wait for the F150... :-( Oh yeah, and that setec unit only made *single-phase* 220, not the "split phase" we're accustomed to here (California).

There are lots of trials in the UK that are looking at load shifting as well as frequency response. From recent reports in the UK these have gone pretty well and you could earn ~£500/year from participating. The sting is that only Nissan EVs really embrace V2G and even then the in home hardware is pricy at several thousand pounds. Once this extra hardware cost drops with more installs I could see V2G becoming more widespread.

The business model is a problem. There's really no answer yet to how all of this is supposed to work. We're a lot further into this process than Australia and yet it seems to get more difficult rather than easier. EVs need fast DC charging infrastructure, but only very occasionally, so this infrastructure is currently loosing a lot of money. A large and ever growing portions of energy production is no longer owned by energy providers but house owners, as most of the solar surface is ideally mounted onto home roofs. There is a huge number of different models of how these interact with the grid and on the financial side. There are no technical standards and there are many legal obstacles to large scale V2G adoption. In order for the transition to sustainable energy to work, several sectors need to be integrated into one network. In my opinion, technology isn't ready yet. All the tidbits are available, but nobody has integrated them yet. I believe the decisive powers in this will surprisingly be the EU and the VW group. VW currently puts massive effort into PRACTICAL V2G development and standardisation (because they know it's inevitable and they want to own the necessary tech and standards) and the EU because they are the most significant driver of renewables in the world at this critical point. I think, once VW has engineered the tech, the EU will adopt it as the standard an thereby make it the de facto world standard. There are new rules required to allow for business models to work and to integrate transport, charging infrastructure, energy production and distribution, etc. I believe the EU is the most likely candidate to combine the political will, economic power and engineering capabilities to do it in one place.

The biggest problem with V2G in Australia especially is that a large majority of our EVs are Teslas which don't support V2G.

I can see a selfparking V2G nudging on to any out door power point at knee level and trading stability and electricity with the grid. A VPP and controlled by the vehicle computer. 😊😊😊😊 Most vehicles are parked 23hrs every day. If my street of 30 homes and 60 vehicles all homes with 6.6kWh rooftops PV and selfparking EVs withbig 100kwhbattery, then we could generate 3mWh and store 6mWh daily. When the wall outlet is in every vehicle parking space, universal, then the battery benefits will be universal. If 20million buildings and vehicles were the same then Australia could be free of fossil fuels. The USA 300million buildings and vehicles could be similar. 😊😊😊

ICE and EVs are a dumb solution to transporting people in a common modality...given a common trip is using a 1500 kg machine to transport a 70 kg person.

I wonder if V2G is putting the cart before the horse. Lets perfect and roll-out V2Home first. Combined with solar, customers with electric vehicles could be significantly off-grid, especially during peak-demand times...store excess solar in vehicle, draw from vehicle. Each customer significantly lowers dependency on grid and becomes self-sustaining to a degree. Early mass roll-out of V2G will only serve to have the few early adopters attempt to support the many non-adaptors. Customers will be wary and hesitant. The market needs to REWARD/incentivise early adopters to get the ball rolling. True V2G as in this video can be realized in 20 years, once we have mass-adoption. EV's are an enabler for V2H. Nothing more. V2G is a fantasy. Car batteries are just too small to effect a real benefit. If each car handled its own "residence" during demand or outages...and we had 90% adoption of EV's...then 90% are covered without great expense or controllability issues, etc. Quit selling at 2X what your willing to buy it for...if power companies keep that stupidity up, why would ANY EV owner want to support V2G

Horse and cart thinking is dangerous. Engineers must solve the right problem. Horse meat was cheap and available after the T model Ford rolled of the production line. The home robotic vacuum cleaner can teach the selfparking V2G EV to connect to the grid and daytrade electricity and stability. 😊😊😊😊😊 20million vehicles, say 100kwh is 2,000 gWh daily. 20million buildings connected to the national grid. 20million Rooftop solar PV systems, say 6.6kWh is 660gWh daily. 20million vehicles are parked 23hrs every day. 20million daily drives 7kwh is small. 140 gWh Rapid charging will be on the main roads and at corner stores. Rosie, the biggest problem in the central electric generation system with no fossil fuels is the transmission construction costs. Alan Fels said 5 times more electricity The other matter like this is that central electricity generation is incredibly limited because of the cost of transmission. The existing national transmission grid is fragile and "just off broke." 5 times more electricity and no fossil fuels means a massive increase in the capacity of the grid. The existing national grid has taken 100years and massive amounts of national wealth, so 5 times bigger is insanely expensive. The excavation of the materials and refining and smelting and....is also polluting. The silence from the professional electrical engineers is deafening. All centralised concentrated electric generation is in need of massive government spending on transmission and decades and decades and... Solar pv on every building rooftop means that the grid can be UNLOADED and protected. When EVs, with every building, and all connected to the existing national grid, the basically unloaded grid will simply top-up the grid storage. The key is V2G EVs, that selfpark and connect to the grid like the home robotic vacuum cleaner. This can happen within a decade as the ev production ramps up. The money will be in the grid ownership daytrading stability and electricity. Hahaha 👍 Think about what I am saying. Happy to say more. Decades of experience in the industry and construction in general. I have a few mates like you but they do not have your RU-vid presence. 😊😊😊😊 As I said talk to me. You have the Mechanical Engineering and analytical skills.

This is really quite brilliant. I always imagined the storage of energy from renewable sources in some big battery facility- but why not in cars?

One key reason there is limited or no take-up is that the world's largest BEV Manufacturer does not recommend or support V2G or V2H. Tesla primarily does this because the majority of their models have battery chemistry that is limited to 1000+ cycles and Tesla spends a fair bit of time convincing their BEV owners not to do V2G/H. Recently their base level model Y's and Model 3's use LFP batteries which are rated for 3000+ cycles and are really well suited to V2H and V2G, however it is only the base model single rear wheel drive options. All the long-range and higher performance options and all Model S and X's don't do LFP. You wont see Tesla supporting this until many more of their models have battery technology that are conducive. Personally I want the option and I am waiting for the manufacturers to start supporting it as part of there recommended/warranted use of their vehicles i.e. the Ford F150 in the USA is one such vehicle for the V2H option. The BEV Manufacturers I follow don't do this yet in AU but I expect this to change in the next 1-2 years and that is when I will buy my BEV.

1. One important piece of information left out of this video was that a typical EV with a 60kWh battery can power a typical home for two days. A Tesla 3 has a 57.5 kWh battery, the long range, 75 kWh. So this means an EV has enough battery to power your home in the evening when there's no solar, but you need to recharge every day. 2. So one thing needed to make this work is having charging stations at all work place parking since you want to charge during the afternoon when solar is in over supply. 3. The second thing needed is EVs that can do V2G. Teslas cannot right now (2023). Nissan Leafs may be the only EV that can. 4. The third thing needed is an electric utility company that allows two way flow of energy. In the U.S. the 2022 Infrastructure bill or Inflation Reduction Act provides funding or incentives to make this happen where it isn't already. (Would it be possible for a home to run directly off the EV battey instead of using the grid as an intermediary?) I couldn't understand what Bjorn was saying about Australia's obstacles to V2G even with captions turned on. Perhaps it's the lack of two way electricity flow at homes?

Maybe incorporating municipal buildings court house, fire, police station, school buildings maintenance buildings to act as baseload production production. Being as most of them are off when people are home..

Various UK schemes for this like octopus energys powerloop or the big power companies have various schemes for biz customers like edfenergy v2g

Interview Robert Llewellyn before, during or after his show gets to Sydney. Ask him to bring a list of priorities for the advances (you probably know as well) UK and Europe have been making. ***** The most important thing to everyone is the real-time realization of i-reflection containment of e-Pi-i "Nuclear" states of information In-form-ation, ONE-INFINITY Singularity distribution, and it's purely a matter of Engineering how Energy is released and distributed according to natural probabilistic correlation in Eternity-now. Avoid the politics, it's poisonous.

Thanks. This was a handy insight into want V2G can and should be. One of the inhibitors is also that not many of the "first generation" EVs support exporting power, the Nissan LEAF and some other CHAdeMO-equipped cars being the exception. However, that is changing, and soon every new EV will support V2X. And that's my near-term goal; I have two EVs - both with ~40 kWh batteries - and would love to use these in real-time to act as my domestic energy storage solution for excess solar PV...

What I think is hindering adoption of V2G for consumers may be for 1 the consumer electricity / energy meter might only support one way flow, 2 an expensive system (power hardware) to manage in housed automated- and/or remotely controlled- power flow direction command, 3 the number of car models that support the V2G technology, 4 a standard if there if there more than one that are compatible with all V2G hardware, (and possibly other electric internet connected loads like boiler, heatpump, AC, dishwasher...) 5 car connector, (chademo seems to slowly die in Europe) 6 grid adaptive hardware, (single fase, 3 fase, 115V, 230V, 50Hz, 60Hz...) 7 spot (hour or minute) priced energy subscription, (very rare in my country Sweden) 8 combability with other energy systems like solar, stationary battery. Meanwhile I try to charge my BEV after midnight. From what I heard it will help the grid.

V to G sounds great yes (the real solution is a powerwall an actual battery backup) but it won't work like people think because it has way to many problems that people overlook. First of all ANY USE OF A BATTERY DEGRADES THE BATTERY DOESN'T MATTER IF IT DRIVING OR FEEDING THE GRIND, so spot spreading that lie. If I drive to work or anywhere how will I be connected to my V to G system at home? Does my work have a V to G system nope, are there V to G grid connectios everywhere I can park nope? How much will that infrastructure cost? It's is just the tip of the iceberg for the problems that I can see that this will have. Too much money for the low amount of use. And I am not going to let my car battery degrade when I am not driving it, that will severely shorten my cars lifespan. Lots more problems that the V to G is useful, save up and get a powerwall and use things for there intended use.

But what about using it to power your house instead?

Nuvve already has the technology! Patented and working in America and Europe !

Thanks Rosie. Very interesting - I am waiting for EV's which make this possible.

Judging by the comments, a lot of people are looking at V2G through the prism of "what would this be like for me and my car, specifically?"... And in the long term, sure, I think individual vehicle owners will play a part. But I think the real tipping point that's going to sneak up on people is fleet vehicles. Like all the 100,000 Rivian delivery trucks Amazon has ordered. Or the 11,000 EV school buses being purchased as part of a recent US infrastructure bill. These will represent huge amounts of storage capacity, managed by companies and government agencies that are (usually) waaay better at thinking rationally about longer term investments.

17:38 is a little long for an elevator pitch. I've owned an Electrical Contracting business in the same industrial park as EV GRID INC who has fought this battle for 20 years ( Shame for not putting a plug in for them). By the way, AC PROPULSION ( Yes, that AC Propulsion) is in the same industrial park ( San Dima Commerce Center, San Dimas CA). At the community mailbox, I've always argued you have to start with the utility providers assuring they will pick up round trip warranty issues with vehicle manufacturers when the EVs are used to feed the grid. Remember in America we still have a huge amount of across-the-line starting and poor power factor correction.

The problem with V2G is logistics. Even if most EVs are not being driven most of the time. Doesn't mean they are plugged into a bi-directional charger, when they are needed. Which is another advantage for modular battery swapping. Most of the capacity can be at a stationary location most of the time. Which is why NIO can make money by using electricity arbitrage.

Thanks Rosie. Love your videos, even understandable for a financial utility person like me.😁👍

Why don't people go off-grid and on battery ? With 2 EVs and solar power...... Monday, go to work in car 1 while car 2 charges via solar. Get home again, connect car 1 as the nominated PSU to power the house through the night. Tuesday, use fully charged car 2 for work - leaving car 1 at home to recharge during the day. Repeat.

I think the biggest problem with V2G are the business model issues. The people running Electricity, Water, Transport and Tax all have to work together because they are so interconnected. It is hard to make money out of efficiency. Things that work well and last a long time tend not to make money for the suppliers. Think about how hard it would be to extract money from the owner of an EV with a 50 year life that doesn't pay for fuel. Eg, e commuter bicycles don't pay much tax and have low running/ownership costs. The political concepts of equity, paying for infrastructure, freeloaders, them and us etc become part of the discussion too. Great video Rosie

There's a couple of other technological factors with V2G that weren't really discussed. The biggest one: a battery delivers direct current (DC) power, but grids run off alternating current (AC) power - converting AC to DC to charge a battery is relatively easy, but converting DC to AC is relatively difficult, and this is something that's really holding V2G back. Almost all existing V2G wallboxes include an inverter, and the DC-to-AC conversion is done off-board. An entire inverter - particularly one which has to put out a true sine wave, with minimal distortion, synchronised to the grid and with a power of 7kW or more, in a wallbox-sized unit - plus the comms hardware for the wallbox to negotiate with the car is not cheap, and bring the cost up to ~5 times what a unidirectional charge point costs. This is the big technological factor holding V2G back - putting an inverter on the wall of every EV owner is not cost-effective for the EV owners or the grid operators, even with the revenue generated by the grid services. The other option is to convert from DC to AC on-board the EV. All EVs have an on-board AC-to-DC converter, and it would need minimal redesign and cost increase to turn into a bidirectional converter. I work in power electronics, and a lot of companies are talking about how on-board chargers will be going bidirectional, including Infineon and Wolfspeed. At the moment, though, on-board V2G (also called AC V2G, because the vehicle supplies AC power) is still in the research stages, although Renault have been doing a load of work on it and the Ford F150 Lightning appears to use this method for their V2H power backup system. The AC wallboxes will be a lot cheaper than the DC wallboxes (they only need to include the required comms tech) and the additional cost to the on-board charger will be minimal - this will probably be the method used in the long-term. The other big technological issue, though, is communications standards. A V2G session needs a negotiation between grid-side and EV-side that's at least as sophisticated as a DC rapid charging session, with the car telling the wallbox its state of charge, voltage, current etc. The only charging standard that supports V2G at the moment is the CHAdeMO standard used by the Nissan Leaf (and it was designed to support it from the start, what with the... risks and history with Japan's grid). All other cars use CCS, and the update to CCS that enables it to be used for V2G will hopefully come out by the end of this year. Volkswagen, in particular, are champing at the bit to add CCS V2G to their electric cars, and from 2022, their ID.3, ID.4 and other EVs that use their MEB platform will support CCS DC V2G. This standard update will also enable on-board AC V2G. V2G is a fascinating topic, and I share your enthusiasm for the technology! I think it can provide invaluable grid services, and also make a huge difference to the deployment of solar - V2G can comfortably carry a few kW of solar power per vehicle from the day into the evening. I think the next few years are going to be very exciting. Footnote: the other factor affecting battery degradation is state of charge. Li ion batteries degrade when charged up to 100% or discharged to 0% and held there. Basically cramming all the Li ions into the cathode or anode causes them to get stuck. The worst thing you can do to a Li ion battery is charge it up to 100% and hold it there, the best thing you can do is hold it at 50%. The V2G trials I've been seeing here in the UK hold the EV battery in a certain SOC band - 20% to 80% or tighter - and only charge up to 100% if asked to. This helps suppress degradation, and will be a lot better for the battery than charging it up to full every night!

The problem is CCS won’t support v2g until 2025, so every new car sold today with a ccs plug won’t be usable for v2g. At least in North America, Chademo is a dead standard with even Nissan’s newest cars moving away from it. So… check back in 5 years?

What is with V2H (Vehicle to home) I’m owning a 40kw Nissan Leaf and would love to use this option. Unfortunately, no one offers the required hardware!

If there's any component of the battery value stack that truly makes sense for mobile storage (ie, EVs) its for FCAS, due the super lower energy throughput vs the availability payment. Demand charge management (in a C&I setting) would also make sense given certain load shapes, - wholesale energy arbitrage would not. Critical obviously is ensuring market bidding is aligned with the actual number of EV's (and their respective discharge capacity) that are actually plugged in. Another good vid of a complex topic.

Vested interests in central power plants is the biggest road block to V2G. Vested interests want Nuclear power plants to fill the existing national grid and government disaster insurance and Government guaranteed cash flows for 60years to 100years like our tunnels and toll roads. Vested interests want the government to build 5 times more capacity into the national so they can build 5 times more generator plants. Nobody will turn off Nuclear power plants and Nobody will pay to clean up the mess. Australia CO2 problem is the world's CO2, Australia is the victim and will be the first country to burn and have its top soil washed away, desertification from climate destabilisation. Sahara desert latitudes are the same as the Australian latitudes. If nuclear is the Australian answer then the world's dictators nuclear industries will demand Australian uranium, or blackmail with the use of continued fossil fuels.

You don't believe this works anymore, I hope. In Japan, EV has introduced in my city 20 years ago, and yet no one wants to buy it. I have seen a few EVs running in the city, most of the EVs were bought by public offices. Year by year they got fewer and fewer, it is unusable, really. Well, this is a beautiful dream. Hope you save real engineers alive.

In the city, Solar and Batteries use only a small area of "the grid". By that I mean small distance of "the grid". Like plumbers say "S... only flows downhill", this is true about electricity too. Electricity generated at home will be used by the closes neighbor that needs it, line losses are smaller as distance traveled is small. So, Grid Infrastructure usage is small. Grid Operators need to charge "Grid Users" by how far, the distance their electricity travels on "The Grid". This would equalize "Grid Cost", so that large Power Generators will have to pay for the "Grid Cost" of being located far from the "Grid Users". And, "City Generators" like Solar Houses get more $$ for generating close to the end user.

I don't think V2G should be seen as a standalone technology. It should be part of the overall transition to a smart grid infrastructure that can make effective use of variable energy sources without a lot of expensive energy storage devices. Time-shifting the use of major appliances is a low-hanging fruit - e.g. running the air conditioner, fridge/freezer, etc at higher power before peak demand so they can be turned off during peak hours. And that does include delaying EV charging till demand is low. Next step would be designing appliances that are more optimized for time-shifting, e.g. freezers with more thermal mass, "geothermal" air conditioning system that can use the ground as a temporary heat sink, etc. EVs with V2G technology should be a part of this effort, but I don't think it's a cure-all by itself.

I note many EV owners seem nervous about the potential for inconvenience, battery degradation etc. so I think it's important to point out the potential financial rewards here - Grid operators pay huge sums for balancing services and the fastest responding attract the greatest premium, this is currently in the order of several tens of thousands of dollars per MW just for availability. As noted providers are paid even if it's not actually used, like an 'on call' retainer payment. I suspect many (most?) vehicle owners would therefore be willing to participate if they had opportunity to take a slice of this very substantial (and growing) pie. So IMO it's the flexible tariffs and other market incentives that will be the key to unlocking V2G as much as the tech. It's a great opportunity for EV owners to earn revenue while grid operators lower their costs. It's a Win-win for all apart from the Diesel farmers, and we need to be getting rid of them anyway.

Down the Coast where we build a fire proof underground Earthship home/business, the V2G will be as far as possible remote from the outside grid, and that can go to the hell they've committed us to. An at-home battery supplied by wind and solar should be 50% size of the car, and the Lithium Titanium type so you can fast charge when required. All the rest is Commentary.

How do we manufacture steel, silicon wafers etc using renewables without ramping up the power grids. Do we need to upgrade the transmission network to handle extra energy requirements?

My Car has V to L Vehicle to Load but its limited to 3KW probably due to inverter cabability and cable size. It can run the house as long as we dont over extend the demand it works just fine as an emergency backup but not as a main storage. as you say proper V2G is a no brainer and we need to get this into the mainstram ASAP.

I still don’t know what part of renewable power generators are renewable? It should read replaceable. Shouldn’t it?

I own a model 3 and it does not sit around my garage fully charged. Typically I arrive home 20% charge. Probably not going to be much help if the grid goes down. I do live in California where the median home price is around $600k so if you are serious about power just put in a power wall type system for about $20k out the door. I suspect if you can afford a Tesla you can afford the power wall.

The problem I see for V2G is not so much the vehicle as it is the ancillary equipment that must be installed at the residence. Whereas a unidirectional charging interface is essentially a simple communications circuit, ground fault detection circuit and contactor the bidirectional interface includes an inverter to convert the battery's DC energy to the grid AC energy. This is much more expensive to manufacture than the unidirectional charging interface and, thus, costs many times more unless subsidized by the utility. The only example I can find that may eventually be available to me (same as pictured in the video) incorporates a grid-tie inverter. In other words it is only suitable for operation when the inverter senses the presence of grid power. It will not operate in a backup mode in the event of grid power loss. Though it may eventually be upgraded to include off-grid operation such operation would need to be interlocked with a cross-over switch that physically isolates the circuit(s) powered by the inverter from the grid. If this crossover operates automatically it can be quit pricey, as well. The most tangible benefit for EV owners that are also subject to occasional or power outages would be to use the vehicle as a backup residential power source. However, the ancillary equipment make this a pricey option. The Independent System Operator (ISO) for my region does provide incentives for Tesla Powerwalls to be managed by the ISO for a limited number of hours per year for the line stabilization and/or demand control. As these battery systems are expressly installed as backup systems I can see a more cost-effective DC-DC connection between the powerwall and vehicle in order to provide additional reserve. One would only need to purchase as many powerwalls as required for peak AC power and rely on the vehicle for additional energy for extended outages. It also permits the vehicle to travel to an area that still has power in order to recharge without the residence losing power. Possessing a lifetime free Supercharging perk for my Tesla I am well aware that such systems open the possibility to abuse that perk. I suggest that Tesla knows the energy consumed while driving, the energy gained by destination charging and that gained by supercharging. It would be straightforward for Tesla to charge me for energy supercharged and discharged into a Powerwall. Now only if I owned a Powerwall.

Frequency based V2G is useless for home users; there is no financial incentive. Only V2G based on your home power demand and your PV production is relevant, as you can store your own produced power during the day for the evening or night. A second scenario is you can buy cheap power at the industrial site of your employer and bring it home to power your house during the night/weekend.

So what B2C model could I actually use now to create more engagement for consumers to be in the ecosystem, working on a project and could definitely use some advice. Aside from clear directives to help aid the transition, what opportunity is clearly underutilized from the automotive side? I would imagine that the best thing is to provide incentives but how else can build the involvement? Assuming that promising monetary returns on the possibility of this future is not sustainable. Is the home grid the best starting point? How else?

Angus Taylor and Josh Frydenburg have a lot to answer for in regards to the current state of our electrical system. They and the rest of the Coal-alition were firmly on the payroll of the tge fossil fuels industry. It’s going to take a long time to undo the mess that they created through either negligence, outright incompetence or act of sabotage that ensure that their paymasters would keep paying them.

I live in north Florida and the first hurricane of the season just passed through. The last big hurricane, I had no electricity for two weeks. I am considering a BEV. As BEVs convert AC to DC to charge, what is the possibility of putting a simple 120v outlet on all BEVs?

Still would like to know how a LAES (liquid air cryobattery) would compare to V²G.

Electric Vehicles that subscribe to sharing their power should get free Car Registration for each year they subscribe.

Vehicle to grid for frequency regulation works, but only if there is a base load power plant ready to spin up 60 (or 600) seconds later. But it's awfully expensive to build those power plants if you're only going to use them a few times a year. As renewables increase in the energy mix, we still need either sufficient base load or enough grid storage to get through a windless night and an overcast week.

Fattening the national grid is stupendously stupid economically with 5 times more electricity and no fossil fuels.

You are assuming vehicles are standing connected to the grid. I understand that AGL currently have a plan underway subsidising their customers to install home batteries in the Sydney metropolitan area for exactly the option of having backup battery power in case of emergencies.

But what about lithium - I have heard and believe that lithium and the elements used for EV batteries will be the limiting factor of the technology. Specially because the locality of the resources - can create geopolitical dependence/conflict - and their rarity on earth.

His description seems like using EV batteries as capacitors. Why not just put fly wheels and capacitors in the electrical grid?

So can VtG be used with a regular 110V or whatever plugin? And what if only a few people have EVs in the area and few of them are plugged in at the time, how few vehicles can a VtG system get by on?

This idea is just a symptom of the many misconceptions about de carbonising our power system. Storage is not an answer, as the intermittency of renewables is of such magnitude that it is not possible to have battery capcity to match that deficiency. We are squandering vast amounts of money trying to make an unsuitable source of power replace fossil fuels. Renewables are not just intermittent (Wind in the U.K. has been very low in output for nearly three months now, it's not possible to compensate for such poor performance) but they are technically deficient and cannot power a grid by them selves. This is my opinion and I believe that time will prove me correct.

the idea of using BEVs as grid storage has always seemed so bizarre to me if BEVs need all their range, then draining their batteries would be bad if they don't need all their range, then it would make so much more sense to just put smaller batteries in them, then you're not wasting energy hauling around all that extra mass of battery packs that aren't being used also totally bizarre that Australia is so keen on grid storage when they have all this perfectly good Uranium that they already mine and export, that could give them as much cheap, highly reliable, on demand electricity, as they could possibly need and even stranger than despite being a country seemingly perfectly positioned for large scale green hydrogen production, it seems to be such a small part of Australia's plans, and FCEVs seem to get much less support than BEVs, and green H2 for grid storage gets much less support than grid scale batteries and pumped hydro, and it's not just the abundant sun either, the brown coal would also be great for hydrogen production, and the uranium too

Honestly its not that bad if the lights go out. As long as it is only once or twice and with lots of warning beforehand. Lets say we build up the new system and test it, and then we set a date for the switch where we are ready with backup plans and then there will be a countrywide blackout for max 30 minutes while we swap to the new system.

It works fine in theory. The problem is always being connected to the grid. For this only works when every parking space has a charging point. Obviously at night if you can charge at home then that works. But what happens when you are shopping or at work. All those parking space need to be connected. All your busses and trucks that will be charged at night will spend most of their time charging as you have to put so much energy into them you don't have the spare capacity to discharge.

Battery degradation is dependent among others by the depth of charging. Charging and discharging daily by say 10% would have little impact. I think that the biggest issue with V2G technology is that it is stochastic storage dependent on vehicle use patterns, vehicle owner needs and other factors stochastically influencing availability. So now we have stochastic energy source and stochastic storage. This is a lot of cats to herd. There are however scenarios where car batteries can be used to smooth short transients for frequency control. I think that a much bigger benefit is using electric cars for individual energy storage - you can drive the car to where the energy is needed. Cars are mobile energy storage.

Your holistic approach is absolutely essential! Thank you!

I charge the car when it is sunny. Excess solar goes to the car, rather than the grid. My car does not have V2L or V2G. But will in the future.

You nailed it when you said you were thinking like an Engineer, because this is best answered with common sense, and while it 's the least common of all senses, Engineers are no closer to having it than people in retirement homes and farmers (it hasn't been measured is the point). V2G exists because it's a sales point - a gimmick, at that. It is about the first instance where you can purchase, then sell back to the supplier, and it is futile. While it works in theory; there are so many better ways to solve the rare grid problem, but they don't sell EVs. We'll start with petrol. In over 100 years, we have not initiated a scheme where you can put 60 litres in your tank and days later sell a jerry can of it back to the servo where you bought it. It's preposterous, and this is an example of common sense. Map it to your EV, and it is even sillier when the best has the equivalent of about 20 litres to start with. I have often needed petrol for a mower, brush cutter and even generator, and despite my car tank being full and capable of not missing any, it is always common sense to drive down to the servo and get a can for those items. Now, map it to your groceries, your clothes, and just about every consumable you can think of? What need is there to sell back to the supplier, and more importantly - who does it? The gimmick is you can make a buck out of changing rates, but selling back to the grid is better suited to your solar, or even a battery attached to it. The need to involve an EV is a very expensive way to do it, and the maths proves it's senseless for the price you pay extra for the V2G cable and software on any EV that has it. You're getting 1 minute of a sale once a fortnight, after all. I have not bought an expensive battery (or an EV) and my solar sells unused power to the grid at one third of the price I pay for it at night. My last bill was a $26 credit, and I didn't have to monitor anything, as usual. No plugging in, either. The absence of hassle is a part of the common sense I factor in. So if the grid needs a fortnightly boost, then the grid should get more of those Tesla batteries they use in South Aus (or other means), and not rely on EV owners on the wish that 100% of cars in Aus are electric with V2G. The reality is (another common sense factor) - EVs are 1%, and about 1% of those have V2G. You can do the math on that one. While Scomo has grand ideas, they will not eventuate - not even close, so you will be looking somewhere into 2050 and beyond to solve the problem with EVs. In fact, forget Engineers - it's EV owners who are the most irrational vehicle purchasers in the country; those who buy the V2G capability are at the top of the tree. V2L buyers are second tier fools. When ICE cars were sold in large numbers, they didn't sell us all the hoses to connect to the bowsers; no, common sense prevailed and the bowsers had the hoses. EVs? That logic went West, because purchasers are as dumb as posts. V2L and V2G are just so you can buy more hoses. The buying public needs to wake up.

The real secret to fixing the grid is to make it a true free market with real time pricing for all. Let anyone supply and put value in for supplies close to loads. In other words have carrying charges that reflect real costs and benefits. If people can make money from their cars sitting in the garage, they will do it. If energy suppliers don’t have to have a GW generator on standby because there is a GW of car batteries on standby everyone wins.

What a load of horse shit. As some who works in the the world of power generation saying that the batteries in cars will just discharge for 60 sec to support the grid isn’t how it works. The point would be for peak shaving which so happens to be the part of the day when people are driving to and from work. I found this to be like talking to a politician, a lot of words with no meaning talking around the real problems with the system. I think V to G has a future, but it nothing like what this video made it out to be. You will need to program when and how far you will need to go with your car, at what time of day, and the buffer you want for the unexpected. Then the computer can trace the grid and you can program at what price, time, rate, and amount you want to sell back to the grid. Also as more people do this the price of peak shaving power will drop. If you do this right it can for set the life you are losing from the battery, if you let to grid control this it cost you allot of money.