Nissan has countered suggestions that providing vehicle to grid services using electric vehicles (EVs) will leave customers with empty batteries.
Some prominent EV owners, such as Energy Managers Association CEO Lord Redesdale, have suggested that the idea of using EV batteries as energy storage is “complete crap”, because owners will be reluctant to lose power after spending hours charging their car.
The issue resurfaced as car manufacturers gave evidence to the Beis Committee on electric vehicles earlier today.
Pointing to its experience of vehicle to grid (V2G) services in Denmark, Gareth Dunsmore, electric vehicle director at Nissan Europe, explained that V2G services are more nuanced.
“It is not draining the battery, it is using the battery to balance the grid,” he said.
“It uses the battery, but it also puts energy into the battery; it is going up and down rather than draining,” he continued. “Draining the battery is not where the value is for the energy company or the customer.”
Nissan’s V2G services in Denmark have initially been fleet-driven, said Dunsmore. In the UK, the firm is involved in Innovate UK funded trials to examine potential for V2G services in both fleet and privately used EVs.
That trial hopes to determine value propositions for car manufacturers, energy companies “and for private customer, to see if they would take [that proposition], which we absolutely believe they would do”, said Dunsmore.
Ian Robertson, Member of the Board of Management at BMW AG, said uptake of V2G services “is all about experience”.
“The technology is more than capable of deciding when the battery can be part of a network, and deciding when the customer is going to be likely to use it, because generally, most of us sleep at night. Therefore there is a period when it can be used as a storage facility for wider use.”
He added: “Any area that people can make money out of generally gets people’s attention.”
Speaking about the heavy commercial vehicle sector, Mike Kerslake, UK technical manager for Chinese battery firm BYD, said V2G services for those customers may require a change of service model in terms of battery ownership and management.
“Perhaps the vehicle owner doesn’t own the battery, but it is [instead] leased from an energy resources company, who also gets value from the vehicle to grid capability,” said Kerslake. “So there is quite a potential change in the way it works.”
The manufacturers also told MPs that second life batteries – repurposing batteries from used electric vehicles to co-locate with renewables, or for standalone storage – will represent a sizeable commercial opportunity as EV volumes grow.
Watch the session here or below.
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Both views (Nissan and Lord Redesdale) correct given the right circumstances. Nothing will stop the roll out of EVs quicker than if the grid steals the battery power just before the morning rush hour. Need good control algorithms, grid stability and clear united direction (BEIS, Ofgem) then solution providers can work collaboratively (& competitively!) to achieve best (cost, carbon and resilience) solution for industry and customers….
I have been involved with running energy services and stopping waste in buildings for over 30 years. The growth of EV usage and how they are connected and charged and paid for is a another complication in trying to meet our insatiable desire to be cleaner, greener, smarter and all for less cost.
It is currently well known that delivered energy prices will be rising, at a rate that has very little linkage to wholesale energy prices in the long term. Current forecasts are that non energy costs are heading for 60% of the delivered energy price. Higher Distribution charges have already moved from just 3 hours per winter day to several hours per day, over a larger part of the year. I understand that the regulator’s long term plan is to move all users to time of day use of system costs. And the smart-meter will be one of the means of making that possible. [Oh, I forgot, you cannot be forced to have a domestic smart meter] However, ALL business users will be forced down this path
So how, when, who can work out how much it will cost per battery size to charge your clean machine?
Could we see the installation of much more locally located renewable energy?
And this will need to be supported by energy storage.