German automaker Porsche has this week demonstrated the vehicle-to-grid capabilities of its all-electric and high priced Taycan in a pilot conducted with German grid operator TransnetBW and consulting firm Intelligent Energy System Services.
Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology – the ability to connect an electric vehicle to the grid to serve as an ad-hoc battery, feeding electricity and grid services back into the grid during periods of high demand – will become an increasingly common feature of electric vehicles, adding to their utility and value.
In a demonstration pilot conducted with TransnetBW, one of four transmission grid operators in Germany, and consulting firm Intelligent Energy System Services (IE2S), Porsche has used five series-production Taycan EVs to demonstrate that balancing power in both domestic and laboratory environments.
The five Taycan’s were connected to the grid through the Porsche Home Energy Manager (HEM), which monitors household power requirements and compares these with the available power at the power connection so as to control the charging power being delivered to the vehicle and avoid overloads.
“The charging technology of the Porsche Taycan and our Home Energy Manager and Mobile Charger products have a lot of potential for the future: the pilot test proved that,” said Lutz Meschke, deputy chairman of the executive board of Porsche AG.
“And the balancing power market isn’t the only thing a pooling system of this kind can be used for.
“Advanced solutions for green charging and other vehicle-to-grid applications are also conceivable. If electric vehicles feed electrical energy back into the grid in the future for example with a private photovoltaic system, contributing to the expansion of regenerative energy, it will further increase the acceptance of e-mobility.”
Underlying the Porsche Taycan pilot test was a cloud-based pooling system developed by IE2S which coordinates and controls the charging processes of the electric vehicles in real time.
It translates the needs of the grid operator’s balancing power into specific charging conditions for the EV. The pooling system also controls the high-frequency and synchronous bidirectional transmission of data.
Joshua S. Hill is a Melbourne-based journalist who has been writing about climate change, clean technology, and electric vehicles for over 15 years. He has been reporting on electric vehicles and clean technologies for Renew Economy and The Driven since 2012. His preferred mode of transport is his feet.