How would you like free power for your EV? That’s becoming the new alternative reality in Europe where grid electricity prices are going negative during the pandemic. The upside-down situation follows a recent period of oil prices falling below zero.
Tesla’s first generation Roadster had the capacity to output power from the battery pack to something other than its electric motor. The technology is often called vehicle-to-grid or vehicle-to-home and it enables electric car owners to power their home with their electric vehicle battery pack.
The automaker has since dropped the technology for its more mass-market vehicles, but it is making a comeback with other automakers and now Tesla is considering bringing it back too, says Elon Musk.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Bi-directional charging or vehicle-to-grid (V2G), the capacity to send power from an electric car to the grid or another battery, has been under development and in pilot programs with several different automakers, but it has yet to be widely implemented.
Now Honda is the latest automaker to get on board with a new bi-directional charging station at its European headquarters as it considers the technology for its upcoming series of electric cars.
Expand
Expanding
Close
While there are some small-scale projects going on around the world, like Nissan and Enel with the LEAF in the UK and BMW with about 100 i3 owners in San Francisco, smart charging and vehicle-to-grid technologies are far from being widely adopted as forms of electric grid services.
But that doesn’t mean that they are not valuable services and the Netherlands sets out to prove it by becoming a large-scale test hub for the technologies with the hope to make them standards around the world.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G), the capacity to power your home with your electric car’s battery pack, is something Tesla has been experimenting with for a long time. The Roadster, Tesla’s first vehicle, actually had the capacity to act as a home battery pack.
But the technology wasn’t implemented in Tesla’s second generation vehicles, the Model S and X. Though this week, a Tesla Energy executive hinted at an upcoming Vehicle-to-Grid capacity for Tesla and briefly mentioned Tesla’s next generation inverter.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Nissan announced a major vehicle-to-grid (V2G) trial project with Enel, a multinational power company, in the UK. The automaker has been exploring V2G systems almost as long as the Nissan LEAF program existed and its latest project is the first of its kind in the UK and one of the company’s biggest to date.
Nissan and Enel will install and connect 100 V2G units (see picture above) for Nissan LEAF and e-NV200 owners.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Nissan announced a partnership with Enel, Europe’s second largest power company for installed capacity, to develop a new “Vehicle-to-Grid” initiative to use, store and return to the grid electricity in excess from Nissan’s electric vehicles.
The initiative appears to be a revival of Nissan’s “LEAF to Home” program, which appears to have been abandoned years ago. Although the new program seems to be more focused on providing a service to the grid rather than backup power, which was the focus of “LEAF to Home”.
Expand
Expanding
Close