“An electric vehicle (EV) is a battery on wheels, and when it’s plugged in, it’s a battery on a wire, and a battery on a wire can go further than just demanding electricity at better times of day, it can potentially be used to output electricity on demand,” said Mark Potter, CTO at solar car park operator, 3ti.
Speaking during this morning’s Current± Briefings: GridBeyond on how EVs can become value-add grid assets (30 November)Potter joined Michael Kent, head of EV solutions at intelligent energy platform, GridBeyond to discuss the opportunity vehicle-to-everything (V2X) services provide for helping manage grid constraints.
V2X encompasses, vehicle-to-grid (V2G), vehicle-to-home (V2H) and even, in some cases, vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), which enables EVs to become a virtual power plant (VPP) – a controllable energy resource – at the end of every consumer unit.
To create a tradable VPP asset, GridBeyond creates an indirect relationship between the asset owner (be that of an EV or EV chargepoint) and the grid. Overlaying a number of different assets, GridBeyond’s software platform finds a way to enter the market, control those assets and ultimately make sure that the volume that is bid into the market with grid is satisfied.
“From a home charging point of view (7.4kW chargers), we would generally require between 300-400 of these assets to meet the minimum MW threshold,” said Kent.
“However being an aggregator, we are sometimes able to put smaller assets into the market by combining some of our existing portfolio against that smaller asset portfolio.”
Kent added that, from GridBeyond’s perspective, the opportunity offered by V2X is only growing as the number of EVs and EV chargers increases.
Picking up on Kent’s point around the prospect of growth offered by V2X, Potter noted that in 3ti’s market space, the destination charging opportunity is favoured due to how much energy could be made available for that asset. The amount of energy available is dependent on how long a vehicle is charging and what state of charge it needs to leave at.
Therefore, the destination charging use-case also becomes much more prevalent for fleets and work place charging bays.
When asked when the V2X market will be ‘ready’, Kent answered: “In short, the more power is available from fewer assets, the sooner the market becomes ready.”