Octopus Electric Vehicles' Powerloop Vehicle-to-Grid | Fully Charged PLUS 

Strange that the actual bi-directional charger used wasn't mentioned here. Its the Wallbox Quasar.

BTW, loving this "classic" fully charged video style. Just Robert and someone knowledgeable getting into the nitty gritty.

This will be huge when CCS becomes V2G.

I'd love to take part in this, but unfortunately I'm a few miles outside the UKPN area :(

This is the reason I would move from my beloved Tesla if they don't offer it - Cannot justify the cost of a Powerwall for what it would save when there's an EV on the drive......

I really like the idea of local time shifting of loads. Never really been a fan of V2G overall, but in coodination with some smart tech in the home to coordinate energy use with the grid it makes a lot of sense to use your own vehicle as a temporary house battery to offset grid usage, then recharge the vehicle later at night when demand is lower and prices cheaper.

How about the life of the car battery? This system introduces more charge-discharge cicles, which will decrease battery life. This was not mentioned in the video. The question is how affected is the battery life, with how much time is the battery life decreased?

A very interesting video showcasing a great initiative by Octopus Energy. Shame it only works with the Nissan Leaf for now but I think the idea has got a lot of potential so hopefully other EV manufacturers will look to enable their vehicles to work this way.

I can't wait for this to come to Type 2 / CCS. Having the potential of 10+ kwh of battery storage 'parked on the drive' would totally fit our usage model! refill overnight from cheap wind power, power our house for the day (when we are in anyway). We'd barely pull anything from the grid between 7am-11pm assuming the car could feed our peak load times. It's the dream!

Wonder if this would work to convert DC to AC for solar panel too , this will offset the need for a separate inverter for solar panels

Fully Charged Plus is amped up (no pun intended) content for the next decade of change. Loving it!

One of the main reasons I bought my Leaf, was for V2G!

This could be the deciding factor in my choice of my next electric car, because I want this function when I retire, I know my pension is going to result in a big drop in my income. This would help immensely! BUT under these terms and conditions its not an option me. i.e. you have to lease the car, I have never leased and will never do so, not so importent to me is; you have to plud in 6pm to 5am to get the £30 pay back! Ho and you have to live in the southeast of the UK.

This is only a partial solution - Rather than Vehicle to Grid, Vehicle to Home makes far more sense. look at the whole house demand cycle and use the car to balance the home FIRST. Take only the amount of energy out of the car that the house typically uses at that time, and then based on the individual household pattern of use, IF there is spare energy, then feed that to the grid at a managed rate to ensure sufficient 'emergency power' for the car's use. (Dynamic Load Balancing - its not that difficult to do)

The presented (female one) said the system takes 7kw out of the car battery. Did she mean 7KwHrs. or is system taking energy out of the battery at a rate of 7kw until the battery reaches the 30% level

Hmm. A bit like the OVO V2G scheme I signed up to, EIGHTEEN MONTHS AGO, then? As others have commented, that scheme was VERY bumpy in the early days, but my own system has settled down, now. "Free" or otherwise sponsored cost trial like the one I am on (and probably this Octopus one) are potentially ( Ooh! joke) viable, but the upfront cost of these bidirectional chargers is always going to be somewhat higher than a one-way charger. So the real-world economies remain up for debate, by my own calculations (I have the data!) Also, BE AWARE that the "round trip efficiency" of the whole AC>DC>Battery>DC>AC process is only between 80-85%. This is easily verifiable (I have done this). So for every 20kW you take from the grid, only 16-17kW makes it back. I have no concerns about battery degradation, if anything, quite the opposite. Batteries are damaged by many things, including deep depth of discharge, or being maintained at 100% for hours, days on end. These smarter chargers are all capable of avoiding these extreme charge states. Cycling a battery between 30-80% has a miniscule effect on battery aging. Reputable reports (Including University of Warwick) are out there, covering this. And currently (ooh I done another joke) NONE of these systems power your house in the event of mains failure. If the incoming mains goes down, V2G units shut down as a precaution, by design. Yes, they "kinda" power your house while the power is up, in that the car drives your house load, exporting any spare power to the grid (as long as it is up).

Looks great but the North/South divide thing is getting extremely irritating.

I'm just wondering what the long term effect of this will be on the battery. Surely you are putting many unnecessary cycles on the battery.

Robert, I would be very glad to see you in Turin, with the new infrastructure of 64 500e parked with working V2G, all connected before delivery to customers and balancing the grid. With CCS!

Nice Video thanks, V2G is the way to go, but i fear car manufacturers dont like it that much.

Thanks so much for sharing information about this project! I'm only interested in V2H since there is no chance that my local utility would set up a V2G program that would be financially advantageous to me. I'm going to follow up on the Wallbox Quasar in the hope that it might be usable in the USA in grid-down situations & would allow my PV array to continue to output. Thanks to the previous poster who shared the name of bi-directional charger. Also, I'd really like to see a program on what options exist for low-cost systems that would allow V2H that would keep my PV array working in a grid-down situation. Electricity costs where I live make a battery backup system not a good idea financially.

This has to be the future. It makes so much sense! Bring it up to Yorkshire!

Want one, please Octopus, - but here in Somerset, one day !

Imagine the uses for this type of technology in the Azores once electric ships become a reality. Having entire port cities filled with EVs with that capability is great for balancing the grid in instances like this.

This will be great once we figure out how to increase the number of cycles EV batteries can have a useful life with. Otherwise feeding the grid will shorten my battery lifecycle and that can get expensive.

Brilliant, especially for those of us with solar panels, pity it’s just Nissan doing this as I’ve a E Nero and a Powerwall. Wouldn’t need the Powerwall if I had this setup.

You know I had largely written off Li-on for "grid level" storage, but if this sort of thing takes off, we eventually wouldn't need "grid level" storage. It wouldn't just be suburban garages, but also eventually urban parking garage's with hundreds of cars. Oh, not to mention depots full of EV delivery trucks.

Gutted this isnt available in my area, I'd jump at the chance to take part.

A great idea. Long time before it reaches Scotland. My Leaf and Zappi is a start!,,

I did apply for this but you can only lease the 40Kwh Leaf which just doesn't have enough range for me. If I could have had the 64kWh I would have signed up for this.

Thought I was onto something, last month had a 100amp fuse and new cable fitted to my house, have had a solar system on the roof making lots of money from that as I'm on about 53p a unit, want to do V2G but can't. I'm already a Octopus customer but I already have a one year old Nissan Leaf, so I don't want to lease one thank you.

Another really useful prog. Thanks. I am awaiting my Swytch e-bike conversion to be delivered shortly after seeing your prog on that last year. This will be another element I will have on my tick-list when our existing diesel cars get to replacement age and we move to an electric car. Please update us as other manufacturers take on the feed-out technology. I bet the Chinese are on to this in a big way already. Splendid.

Fully charged, a video on the challenges, both technical and policy, to making this set up be readily available on the market would really help a lot of people here. Happy to talk about suggestions and ideas if you want to make contact. It’s clearly the missing piece of the puzzle. Maybe if you want a little trip away to cornwall in the new year I could show you around a set up doing just this.

Heard the other week that new building regs will increase household to 100 amp fuses. so all new and refurbished houses.

Cool, sadly I'm not in the area to try it

Great video

Looking for a Quasar unit...strange it's 'deprecated'

Ok it’s the future… but by when will I be able to use the MG 4 as a battery bank both for home and V2G …. Not having to lease car and do it when I like not just 12 sessions

Where is this development two years on? CCS is the standard now across Europe

I entered into the OVO energy V2G trial resulted in 5 months of no charger at all, 4 Failed V2G chargers garden path dug up. I now have a 7kw Charged EV charger that only charges at 1.4kw and customer service ignoring me. 4 years prior to this I had a Podpoint charger that worked but stopped giving telemetry back to Podpoint so they kept sending me monthly charging of Zero. Customer service was hopeless just more ignoring of fob offs. Over 4 years of electric car ownership and its customer service and unreliable charging equipment that frustrates. Oh and the reason OVO said the V2G didn’t work and they gave up “wrong type of electricity “ so if you enter into these schemes be aware it may not go well .

This relies on time of use tariffs for both export and import. My understanding of the smart meter technology is that support for tou export tariffs is extremely limited, if available at all.

I would like to take part but it’s a pity VW don’t have the software & hardware. Hope they are working on it.

I'd like something I could plug into the Chademo to provide power for electric tools when working in the field. I believe such devices are available in Japan, but I'm not aware of anything in the UK. It would be far quieter and greener than using a portable generator.

Surely, every vehicle can be crudely harnessed to have the power available? Why is chademo neccesary?

So the Ioniq 5/EV6 V2L function is not usable in this case?

Annoyingly I own a LEAF which basically sits at home all day and night as I use a van for work so the car gets used mainly at the weekend but the big issue is I own the car. They are only offering it if you lease the vehicle 🤦🏻‍♂️

Fantastic, this will help reduce the need for fossil fuel to be used to off set the peeks and troughs

I have been enjoyed, so thank you for delivering.

I'd really like to see a Vehicle to Everything feature in the future. I'm not as interested as using my car to help a national power grid as I am helping me in the days after a disaster, camping, remote power, etc. These cars store immense power capacity and "currently", we can't even run a hair dryer from it.

I’d love to see an update when the data is summarized. Some metrics that would be interesting to see would be 1. Percent of battery degradation after the trial and the projected percentage loss over a five year period. 2. Projections on the impact to the grid operators. If 50% (or x%) of all EV were in the program, how much of the peak could be covered? What if different vehicles like Tesla who have larger batteries could be used to extract even more KWH? I could see other vehicles significantly increasing the amount of KWHs eliminated from the grid. ( I know they can’t now but the data would apply. Also how much is it to buy and instal the charger? I think some consumers would prefer a different business model where they own the charger?

Find free vend charger, fill up, go home, free energy all evening?

V2G has been simmering away for years now and I keep seeing trials with (mostly) Nissan vehicles. When is it likely to go mainstream with CCS/Type 2 and other vehicle manufacturers? Are we on a cusp yet or still in "more trials required" territory?

Ah, its a shame you cant join the scheme with a non-Octopus Leaf

I think it Will be great to simply have a vehicle to grid which uses your electric car just like tesla power wall and once the car hits 50% charged or a set amount it sells the rest of your solar to the grid. I understand they want to use the battery to power the grid up and down but I think it's smarter to export only during the day after the car hits it's threshold % from being used all night. I pproduce 58kwh of solar per day. 51kw a day is sold to the grid and use 7 in the say day. I also buy14kwh more from the grid. If simply like to charge my car to 50 or 60% and then sell any excess to the grid during the day. To avoid buying any powet only selling after my car tops up each morning. I know these companies who are doing vehicle to grid won't like that but I think it's easier to run that way.

In Australia the average distance driven per day is only 36km. Who wouldn't like to monetise some of the remaining 240km in a 40kWh Leaf. 30£ is the equivalent of $53.45au. Plus your house gets free first use of up to 7kW when the V2G is operating. Imagine alm the solar that could be stored in a sunny country when the majority of cars have 50kWh or more of storage in a decade or so.

V2G would be a no brainer for me in the future as and when I get an EV - combined with PV, charging the car during the day from free solar and then using the relatively massive battery to power the house would be perfect. Shame Chademo is only being used by Nissan at the moment. I am in the UKPN area but not quite ready to bite the bullet and rent a Leaf - happen to be on Octopus too ;) Claire, as Director of T & I please avoid mixing power (kW) and energy (kWh) when describing the input/outputs - sounds pedantic but it's relevant here - at 7kW max output the Leaf battery of 40kWh would provide 4 hours of power to the grid/house (with 70% max drain of 28kWh) ...if I changed sector from telecoms I'd love to work in this area ;)

Isn't V2G coming to CCS charging with V3? Which is coming soon.

This is another important step to decarbonizing the UK electricity, transport and industry markets. I hope many more EV manufacturers get on board. Then we need another 30GW of new nuclear installed to supply the zero carbon power 24/7.

Too bad it's only chademo...

When is this coming on the market octopus?

When are Octopus going to be Australia. #Enova are ready for you. Enova is a community energy, based in North Coast NSW AU.

Love the idea but until they sort out a decent tariff that just makes sense. Import from the grid at 15p or so then export it at what....3 - 5p kwh. So they can then charge other at 15-20p pkwh

How much would you get after the trial? Yes you have checked it's not voiding the battery but the charging cycles will be 'used up' so the battery will get used a lot faster, does the economics pay for, say halving the life of your battery?

Is this going to be compatible with CCS anytime soon? Really surprised Tesla haven't got in on this especially with their experience with solar panels and grid tie batteries, they would make it very user friendly and implement it very well

This is a great idea and i'd up for allowing my vehicle to be part of the pool of available energy, .my only concern would be the impact on the overall battery health considering batteries may last only 10 years id be giving up the longevity of the battery. Hopefully it all balances out.

Won't the greater number of cycle counts reduce the lifespan of the battery or do EV batteries work differently from the batteries in electronic products?

You spend all this money on a EV how much does this shorten the like of the battery after warranty. Battery's don't last long charging and dis charging

What losses do you have in the AC/DC conversions?

Brilliant. Bring it on!

I really don't understand why this isn't just a standard with electric cars. Big battery not being used seems to make a perfect tool to help balance the grid load

First of these with a good company presenter - you can see why octopus are doing well

Will one be able to retrofit some kind of conversion that will allow v2g on CCS in the future or will it mean replacing the car to avail of this tech. I for one would be interested in a conversion on my E Niro

Why to the grid and not just the house? Your outlay to others' benefit?

Does anyone know what cable (and is it a single cable) runs between the external car charger wall box and the components that are internal?

Have to lease a vehicle to be part of the trial... When are leases for 2nd hand and other older cars going to be a thing?

This sounds a great idea on paper but surely this will reduce the life expectancy of the battery, doubling (or more) the number of charge / discharge cycles, if you do this on a daily basis. On a technical note, if a fault occurs on the power network &:the DNO has to isolate an area to work on it, there could still be many of these inverters feeding power back Into the grid.

How much it costs?

Once this becomes mainstream the sale of solar batteries will fall through the floor.

A bit confused here. I was interested in Powerloop earlier in the year but when I asked if the car could also power my house, I was told that that was not possible at the moment but would be reviewed in the future. Has something changed?

I would like to report Fully Charged for the V2G situation of the CCS plug. This is much more common in Europe. I am really looking for this solution. Please hurry up!

so, let's say my employer paid for the charging of my company vehicle, and then I returned home, plugged in, then used the stored power in my home, wouldn't that be theft ? I might be missing something (I don't have an EV but do drive a company vehicle. I'd then be paying for cheap electric at night, but using my companies' expensive electric to power my home.

This is a bit too late. Chademo is dying, unforchanatly.

Obviously recorded in a very large very warm room - what a waste of energy

Is it compatible with a Solar PV installation?

getting my Nissan Leaf in January. cannot wait for this to come to Staffordshire. I was looking at investing 7K on the tesla power wall, but will now wait for this to power my house. Also moved my energy supplier from eon to Octopus specifically for innovations like this.

Very disappointed. I was totally enthused until I went on the Octopus website and learn the lease is only for business users. Supposedly because of uncertainty and risk due to Brexit. I do not fully understand but they could could ameliorate the Brexit risk by allowing private individuals who already have a Leaf or prospective purchasers thereof to join the scheme or would that undermine the business model (profit margin)?

i love this idea. its not a new idea but this seems to be the first commensal set up. :)

If you lose grid power to the house, can the car battery act like a backup generator supply?

❤👍

Awesome . . Someone has found a use for a Leaf :-)

Can someone tell me why it's taking soooo long to get V2G into the CCS standard? It's so infuriating that I will be buying an EV next year, that I will probably use for at least 5 years, and it will not have V2G capability :(

Is it possible to retrofit V2G to a first-generation Leaf?

What really excites me is if and when they allow powerloop to be used with a variable tariff. Between this and a domestic battery, you could effectively avoid using any electricity off the grid during the peak hours.

If the government want a sustainable grid then they could install battery systems in every house and use them to supplement and stabilise power usage throughout the UK. These systems don't have to be just for car owners.

have you all talk to jaguar?

This is such a good idea - well done :)

Just had a chat with them, to confirm, any power they take as part of VTG, they recharge overnight for free! I've ordered :)

If you could charge your car from 30% to 100% in 5 minutes and fast chargers were cheaper than house chargers, you could game the system by charging your car on your way home then plug it into the house when you get home and run the house off the car and still have enough to get to work.

I'm going to be controversial and cheeky. (Tongue-in-cheeky.) Not knowing quite what emotional state your EV is in - say, in the middle of the night when you have a sudden pressing need to go on a long drive to watch a rally stage deep in the Kielder Forest - wouldn't it be a jolly good idea to have a nice boring old petrol car standing by for immediate use whilst your EV is left to do its complicated overnight technical things... No, of course I'm not being serious. I'm being wilfully obtuse and deliberately misunderstanding the grid-dynamic thingy whatsit. I can only afford to ride an old bike these days; I can't afford public transport or an EV or an IC car or an e-bike or an e-toy of any description, so I thought I'd ruffle some feathers. Frankly, I'm not sure I'd want all this connectivity and sharing and helpfulness, because I'm English and therefore required by law to be evil, wicked, mean and nasty. What effect would all this battery cycling or micro-cycling have on an EV's painfully costly innards? At least a petrol tank has a lock on it. I mean, all this 'Ooh, please share my precious £25,000 battery' happy-clappy stuff sounds very dodgy to me. Hold my beer and pass me that tambourine. Kum-by-yah... Seriously, any kind of 'help everybody because we're all in this together' scheme couldn't possibly work in Britain. We're selfish, greedy, cynical individualists; we're awkward and unhelpful, uppity and grumpy and definitely not community-minded. Heck, even the Romans gave up on us 2,000 years ago. Packed up, went home, built Ferraris. We're a hopeless case and proud of it. Be honest - we loathe our neighbours; the idea of them using our property, even if we can supposedly use theirs in return, just won't work. The very thought of sharing even something as mundane as a Wi-Fi router brings Brits out in a cold sweat. Someone could be streaming gigabytes of 8K video or Muffin the Mule and wearing it out while you're fast asleep. It'll never work. Now... Get orff moi laaaand!

Did I miss something? how much will I get paid for someone else using my electricity, £30.00? You've been a busy boy Rob