Essential Energy and CSIRO announced Tuesday that they would partner on yet another vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology trial, this time focused on how to integrate the technology as part of a wider home energy management system in regional areas.
V2G technology involves a bidirectional EV charger that allows two-way exchange of energy between car, the home, and the grid, and essentially turns an EV into a mobile energy storage system that can store renewable energy when it is cheaper and feed it back into the home or grid during peak times.
“At the moment you can buy a battery and connect it to your home, but those batteries have small storage capacities compared to an EV which has as much as five times more storage,” said Dr Sam Behrens, senior research engineer at CSIRO’s Newcastle Energy Centre and technical lead for the collaboration with Essential Energy.
“If you use your EV to store solar energy as it is generated during the day, you can then use that for night-time electricity needs. It can also be used to support the grid, enhancing reliability and resilience by flattening peak loads.”
Essential says has already designed and fully equipped this ‘residential house of the future’ at its Innovation Hub at Port Macquarie.
According to the company, the house has a range of customer energy resources such as solar panels and batteries and a suite of fully controllable appliances including a fridge, dishwasher, dryer, lights, television, pool pump, hot water system, dishwasher, and air-conditioning.
The Innovation Hub will be home to the V2G trial, trialling how to integrate the technology as part of the home energy management system while also assisting the network during times of peak power demand.
“V2G technologies have enormous potential and they’re going to play a big part in the future electricity system, but at the moment our understanding of how they might work in the Australian context is limited,” said Kate Cavanagh, CSIRO Transport Electrification team lead.
“Our project is set in regional Australia, and we are using real household appliances in a laboratory setting to provide a range of realistic and controllable household types and scenarios to test out V2G.”
The trial could serve an important role in developing capabilities and even policies for V2G technology across the country.
Currently, V2G technology is limited for EV owners in Australia, with customers attempting to connect their V2G charger to the grid potentially encountering regulatory challenges, including complying with current Australian standards.
The CSIRO–Essential Energy trial is aimed at understanding how V2G technology can be integrated into buildings and the broader grid and will aim to identify potential obstacles that could impede the uptake of V2G technology as a widely used energy resource for households and businesses.
“Trialling V2G technology is an important part of supporting customers to gain better value from their rooftop solar and electric vehicle batteries,” said Luke Jenner, the COO of Essential Energy.
“V2G technology also has the potential to lower costs for all customers by helping to optimise the flow of energy throughout the network, offsetting the need for additional investment in the network.”
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.
Yes, let’s have another trial. While we’re at it, we’ll use CHAdeMO again.
I’d be happy if they got of their bums and approved chademo (having a Nissan Leaf). Leafs were released in 2011 – 13 years ago!
Surely they could have started work on VtH/VtG and had the appropriate standards out by now.
It’s very depressing how little foresight these people had about where the energy sector was headed.
I wonder if any of them have woken up yet. Perhaps the approval process is too moribund, in which case the government should put some work into speeding up the process.
The relevant Australian std is being prepared currently. Yes this could have been done decade ago. Which would have been great!
WithIn the context that the LNP had nearly a decade with a policy to slow down the transition in any way available. Remember Scomo’s ‘a ev will spoil your weekend’ V2G was one of those ways. There are a few jurisdictions around the world that will have systems in place from 2025.
So it is great that we are finally making real progress to making V2G available.
So once the std is released things will start to happen.
V2G std is scheduled to be available by end of the year. Then the industry and state government bodies will start work toward making V2G available in states.
Not much choice. Very few CCS2 have V2G.
V2H has been available with the Leaf for many years. Search “V2H device” or “V2H inverter”. Also required at a minimum is a regular generator inlet plus transfer switch. The transfer switch will disconnect the home circuits to be powered by the Leaf from the grid. Existing standards for connecting a generator can be followed. No need for new standards as far as I can see.
CSIRO?
Should be privatised.
Just a massive sinkhole for swallowing public money.
Probably recommended the cane toad fiasco.
What was its last great gift to the Australian public? Trying to gene edit varroa mites to make them infertile?
This is a link to how the cane Toads arrived. https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/introduction-of-cane-toads
Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations (BSES) were the government body responsible. After the initial trial they were withdrawn due to environmental impact concerns. A few years later were released after very strong lobbying of the federal government by cane growers.
So the toads were released for political reasons to appease a strong industry group.
Excellent research!
Given the difficulty in eradicating them, I’m surprised they needed a second release anyway. Typical bungling by govts in thrall of lobby groups.
Wifi
Excellent!
The royalties from that must be earning us fortunes every second of every day worldwide.
Photo shows a picture of a person in front of a washing machine and dryer, using HomeKit to turn on … what exactly?
These devices aren’t smart and don’t expose controls to the home network. You can’t ask your dryer to “please stop for an hour while energy is tight on the grid”. These are devices that only take commands from the front panel.
You could turn the power off to a single device via a smart switch, but when you turn it back on it doesn’t remember what it was doing – it just goes to the default initial state requiring you to select the program you want and push the go button.
The problem is many of the companies that produce appliances are either clueless about automation and/or they want to lock you into their ecosystem/product lines
If i understand you correctly (unlikely) you want every electric device in your home to be smart?
Sorry kids the toaster won’t work for another hour because that cloud that just passed over means we lost 2 cents worth of profit selling our sunshine back to the grid.
The best time to get V2G up and running was 10 years ago. The next best time is NOW!
Imagine if everyone had an internet portal where they could bid prices for which to sell energy and how much. I might bid $1/kWh for 20kWh. My neighbour might bid $2/kWh. The sun sets on a hot summer evening, the local NEM electricity price spikes up to $1500/MWh, the grid buys my energy but not my neighbour’s.
Yes Tom, that’s what the world needs more of. Gloating about defeating your neighbour.
Cant think of anything like that happening in the real world.
John reading your other half-wit comments on this thread there’s probably not a lot of point responding, but I will.
A V2G network could potentially allow every stored electricity owner (whether by stationary battery or EV) to be a free market participant in the same way that the big generators and batteries are now.
Each participant could offer to sell energy – only as much as they are willing to offer and only at the price they are willing to accept. No obligation on either end. No obligation to participate in the market – only if you choose to.
Then the market could buy electricity from those participants willing to sell, paying them the market price, and if you multiply say 5kW by 100,000 EV owners then suddenly you have an extra 500MW to help fulfil the sunset demand peak and blunt the price spike.
The EV owner wins, the grid wins, the other consumers win because their electricity bills go down.
In the above example my car may have had a full battery and I was only planning to drive 50km tomorrow, while my neighbour might have been planning to drive 300km and so would have been willing to sell some any buy it back in the morning (before the sun came up hence from the grid not from their own solar), but only if the price was right for them. The following day might be vice versa.
Tom this is what CER should mean. Not the crudy deals being negotiated with retailers that feel they are entitled to take 10% for having a web site to sign up and then sending bills for energy use and getting paid as much as they can get – service?
Thanks for taking the time. Much appreciated. I’m afraid that the technical details are as much use to me as the operating manual of a tv remote control written in Chinese, with no diagrams, or symbols.
It disappoints me to know that so many people refuse to convert to EVs until the perfect conditions exist for them to monetise their transport.
I will have to content myself with being a half wit. Could be worse. Imagine being a lack wit?
Before we get into controlling home appliances etc, how is the interface between the vehicle and the 240V AC home supply being handled? It has to work through the CCS2 socket which is almost universally used on EVs in Australia (except for Nissan LEAF, some Mitsubishis, and maybe Lexus). There has to be an inverter somewhere. Will that be in the vehicle or in the home? Vehicles that offer V2L already incorporate an inverter. Will those be used in V2G? What will be the power rating? It would be wonderful to find an informed discussion, but to date I’ve seen nothing.
Let’s hope it doesn’t take them 30 months of study like the NRMA trial that was announced.
Sounds good, less talk more action
Vehicle to home or vehicle to business is probably the greatest threat to profits and revenue for all the existing large players in the electricity system. So I’m not surprised they are trying to figure how they can reach inside your home and your car and steal some of your own solar generated and battery stored energy that they didn’t pay for and make a buck out of it while your not looking and at the same time telling you how amazing and awesome they are for setting up the system( aka the milking machine) for you.
Realistically, with V2H, A LOT of Australian home owners will be able to disconnect from the grid if they have a large solar array of around 15-20 kw’s and power their daily commutes, Anyone who tells you otherwise, is lying.
By disconnecting, I also mean they won’t want to pay anything to the grid or an electricity provider, they will want to be paid to be on it. That doesn’t work if everyone does it.
The other factor that is going to kill the grid stone dead is robotic taxis – See Tesla latest announcement.
Why? Because everyone’s personal electric car will be sitting at home charging up from the solar. Why take your own car for the daily commute if the robocar is cheaper and more convenient.
Bet you didn’t think of that one!
This future is coming and it’s inevitable.
Invest wisely and don’t believe a word they tell you. DYOR
“don’t believe a word they tell you”
Excluding you, presumably?