Electric car owners can pay for parking by discharging energy during their visit to the new Nissan ‘Future of Mobility’ exhibition in Yokohama (Japan).
A new report is calling for Australia to get on the front foot in the shift to electric cars by ensuring as many EVs as possible are enabled to act as “batteries on wheels” and can soak up plentiful solar during the day and use it to “provide almost any service the grid needs.”
Vehicle-to-grid, or V2G, is an emerging technology that holds promise for enhancing grid stability, managing peak demand, and better integrating renewables, while also offering big potential financial benefits for energy consumers, including those without an EV.
But as EV uptake starts to ramp up in Australia, aided in part by the introduction of the National Vehicle Efficiency Standard in January 2025, the concern is that under the NVES Australia will import thousands of EVs that will not be V2G-enabled.
The Batteries on Wheels report, prepared for the Solar Citizens by Ajaya Haikerwal and Gabrielle Kuiper, calls on governments and regulators to take urgent action to prevent this from happening, by setting V2G standards for EVs imported to Australia.
And it sets out the other pieces of the puzzle that will need to fall into place in Australia – changes to technical and regulatory energy market standards, policy incentives, tariff reviews, and more – to ensure that we can take full advantage of V2G enabled EVs when they come.
According to the report, while all EVs are capable of smart charging, very few that are currently sold in Australia are capable of V2X (also known as vehicle-to-everything), and fewer still are V2G-enabled.
In fact, there are only three EV models in Australia capable of V2G, the report says; two of them plug-in hybrid EVs (with relatively much smaller batteries around 13-20 kW) and one the all-electric Nissan Leaf. And all of these use a type of charger Australia – and the world – is leaning away from (CHAdeMO).
In Europe, meanwhile, there are around 43 models capable of V2G while, globally, many vehicle manufacturers, especially in China and Korea, are planning V2X models.
“We’ve spoken to Hyundai, Nissan and BYD, and they’re all really interested in vehicle to grid technology, but they’re not prioritising it yet, because we don’t have all the components… [in place] to warrant the investment in vehicles that come to Australia,” Solar Citizens CEO Heidi Lee Douglas told The Driven on Tuesday.
“When I’ve spoken to BYD, for instance …they’ve said that they they can provide that technology now, but it costs them a little bit extra to put it in the car.
“So that’s why we need the government signals to make sure that the manufacturers are prioritising that, so that consumers don’t have to work it out later.
“Just like with the New Vehicle Efficiency Standard, if we don’t have these government legislations or regulations to signal to manufacturers to put us at the front of the queue for the best technology, then we’ll get the old technology.”
In other words, while the NVES might stop Australia from becoming a dumping ground for the world’s most polluting fossil fuelled cars, if we don’t get all of its settings right we risk becoming a dumping ground for the least intelligent EVs.
“What I’ve heard is that in California, which is in an energy system quite similar to ours, that there’s an abundance of Teslas sitting there in garages that can’t be used as batteries on wheels,” Douglas says.
“We want to prevent that problem by getting ahead of it. Now that we have these new vehicle efficiency standards, let’s make sure that those vehicles are getting bought into Australia can really be maximised in terms of their cost of living benefits and carbon reductions as well, plus grid stability.
“If [EVs] become part of a network system… we can then help each other to stabilise the grid, and that can help to reduce need for more transmission infrastructure.”
And there’s plenty to lose – or miss out on – if we do get stuck with the “old technology.”
As the report explains, V2G allows EVs to serve as mobile energy storage units, leveraging their batteries – which have exponentially greater storage capacity than the average home battery – to store excess energy from the grid.
This stored energy can then be orchestrated and discharged back to the grid during peak demand periods or when renewable energy generation is low, helping to balance supply and demand and support grid stability.
“V2G-enabled EVs can be utilised by the energy system as Consumer Energy Resources (CER), responding quickly to signals to export, import or store electricity and in theory can provide almost any service the grid needs,” the report says.
And the value of these services could be huge. According to the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), V2G could account for over a third of total energy storage by 2030, deferring the need for $94 billion in large-scale battery storage investment.
For consumers, meanwhile, the report says that the financial benefit for an EV owner participating in V2G services is estimated conservatively at $1000 per year, by performing a whole suite of grid services.
Of course, it’s not an uncomplicated task. V2G systems require “a multitude of standards,” the report says, related to chargers/EVSE (Electric Vehicle Service Equipment), communications interfaces between chargers, the car, the grid, other smart
devices, batteries, and safety.
Then there are the grid-side technical and regulatory changes that need to be made to accommodat v2G, as well as changes to tariff design and other retail arrangements.
Consumer buy-in will also be crucial. As the report notes, “orchestrated V2G (where the energy operator can utilise multiple V2G assets for grid services) is the goal, but only if consumers can opt in and out freely.”
Financial incentives – perhaps boosted by government rebates – will be key to this, but Douglas says Solar Citizens has found plenty of interest in V2G within its own 200,000-plus supporter base.
“What we know from the work we’ve done with our own supporters is they’re keen as mustard to get vehicle to grid enabled,” she tells The Driven.
“And a lot of people that we’ve met at community stalls that we do – that grassroots work – have also said to us, they want to make sure that the EVS they’re buying have V2G.
“And that’s because a lot of people who are really concerned about cost of living, people who are retiring, for instance, they want to make sure that … they get the biggest bang for their buck. And they can’t necessarily afford to buy a household battery and an electric vehicle, so they want something that can do both.”
Ultimately, the comprehensive Solar Citizens report delivers five policy recommendations, starting with the call to add a V2G-enabled EV requirement into the NVES.
“In 2027, California will introduce a requirement for all EVs sold in the state to be V2G capable.29 As the world’s 8th largest economy, this could signal the future market direction to manufacturers,” it says.
“Australia should review the effectiveness of the California requirement on V2G-enabled EV supply, as well as any unintended consequences on EV supply more broadly.”
“In the 2026 [NVES] review, [Australia should] investigate how the NVES could be used to signal to manufacturers the readiness of Australia for V2G technology and align their production as such.”
Sophie is editor of One Step Off The Grid and deputy editor of its sister site, Renew Economy. Sophie has been writing about clean energy for more than a decade.
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View Comments
Seems like common sense. i.e. Smart people haven't thought about an obvious and essential step to take.
Perhaps we should establish a consultancy, based on ordinary people, that offers governments solutions to problems that no one smart enough has asked for?
Is not ‘emerging’, is more bs format wars; CHAdeMO has had this since the get-go.
But CHAdeMO is definitely the Betamax of EV charging interfaces.
8 track audio was superior but didn't win the cassette tape war.
Ev sales down in Australia this year.
Sounds like we will have the rich with power and everyone else back to the stone ahe
Down, yes, but not insubstantial. Adding V2G would be attractive to me as we let our old Golf age gracefully.
Except its up. 51K to june this year versus 47K last year.
Maths not your strong suit, growth rate is down, which is a lot different to sales down. Nice try but your FUD skill are a bit lacking.
It sounds like some smart people working on this, so I really hope the regulators & all the other necessary stakeholders can work this out to avoid a wasted opportunity.
I'd be stoked if our Model Y could also be compatible
Step one - provide chargers where the cars spend their time.
Fill work carparks up with chargers.
Solve the duck curve (minimum demand).
Solve the evening peak (maximum demand).
But let's talk about it and do studies and predictions and form committees and produce reports and have forums.
Or.
Just
Build
Chargers
"if we don’t have these government legislation or regulations to signal to manufacturers to put us at the front of the queue for the best technology, then we’ll get the old technology.”...typical!!!!
This is Australia's MO, it seems. All politicians are disappointments to me presently, I must say. David Pocock is the exeception.
Australian adoption of DER and EV standards is a complete muddle, and the efforts to date remind me of the old saying that "a camel was a horse designed by a committee".
We must somehow become proactive on this issue or suffer poor planning results.
The Solar Citizens paper covered many details, and I was happy to see that the IEEE 2030.5 standard was identified as one that needs widespread adoption.
A huge amount of work went into adapting and refining CSIP-AUS, so it is now time to implement such standards and realise the benefits.
California laid the groundwork for this standard, and California, as a large market, will likely push OEMs to incorporate the standard in EVs.
Hahaha!
Your “a camel was a horse designed by a committee”. comment deserves closer inspection. It was coined by the designer of the Mini to reflect his dislike for teamwork!
Clearly, he was in favour of dictatorship over consensus.
As we can plainly see, he has many acolytes around the world.
Some sayings don't warrant close inspection - as by every measure other than (subjectively) aesthetic - camels are a far better 'design' than horses - which implies committees are the way to go....which I'm pretty sure wasn't the intent....
Interesting how much I agree with you. Camels are infinitely superior to horses.
Popular sayings are often rubbish.
I think you are misinterpreting this, or trying to rewrite history. He was patently in favour of being left alone to develop his ideas.
If BYD says it costs some money to put V2G capability into a car, then why don't they offer it as an extra?
I am in the market for an EV, and I would be happy to pay a grand or so extra for it; much more so than for extra performance
I think there is a bit of commercial posturing going on here. Demonstrations in Europe have already shown a number of existing EVs can do DC V2G with no additional hardware or software onboard including BYD models. Car makers may want to "capture some value" from that capability though by assigning it a price.
A lot of people are saying that they want to make sure that the EVs they’re buying have V2G? I'm surprised. I thought they would want V2H, which every EV with V2L is capable of. What would be the additional benefit of V2G over V2H? Don't get me wrong, for the grid V2G would be better than V2H. But would it be better for the individual EV owner?
BTW, V2G will happen when the European Union requires it by law. No signs yet that that will be anytime soon.
With the right regulatory framework and an appropriate feed-in tariff, the individual owner could reap a financial reward from V2G, which of course does not apply to V2L/V2H. This is mentioned in the article. However I very much doubt that many EV buyers are sufficiently advanced in their thinking to be demanding V2G.
Financial reward from V2G for the EV owner would be good. But who would force the grid operators to share fairly the financial benefits deriving from V2G? And how much reward per owner could that be once a substantial number of EVs participate? $1000 per year for one million EV owners?
Also, what would be in it for the generators? Would they be happy with a huge fleet of grid-connected EVs if that prevented them from gaming the wholesale price of electricity to the extent that they can and do today?
V2G would be a smart, maybe even essential, way to drive forward a reliable grid with a high percentage of renewable generation and affordable retail electricity prices. But somehow that still feels a long way off.
In the mean time V2H is within easy reach of every owner of a V2L-capable EV. Unfortunately the grid-supporting potential and financial rewards of V2H seem largely overlooked.
A retail tariff like Amber would already allow a V2G home access to wholesale market prices for their exported energy. If I could implement V2G today I'd sign up for Amber tomorrow and find myself able to trade ~50kwhr into each day's peak and avoid any imported energy costs. Fantastic. V2L is good but would only access a tiny fraction of that available and useful capacity so I definitely want to go all the way to V2G.
I agree - I do not understand why V2H is not the driving force here. It makes far more sense to have your EV plugged in to your home (smaller) battery system and use this to draw or top up as required. This fixes the overall system (as power draw is reduced by all the consumers using V2H) and also act as 'soakers' when there is excess in the system. We seem to be stuck in screaming for a solution that will take tens of years to resolve, when we could implement home-based systems within a very few years.....
V2L is a bit different from V2H mainly because V2H is suppose to be automated and is able to intelligently or at least via software switch from charging the car or powering the home. V2L, you'll need to unplug the car from the charger and plug the v2l adapter. You can't really power the entire home, but more individual appliances.
What’s that you say? Get on the front foot? This is australia mate, we don’t do things that way. If the fossil fuel industry doesn’t want it, we don’t want it! Got it!
So sad; so true.