A new trial run by the National Grid ESO (ESO) will see electric vehicles (EVs) help balance Britain’s electricity grid.
Initiated via Power Responsive, a programme operated by the ESO to encourage participation from energy users and industry, the trial will allow households with smart EV charging capability adapt their charging habits in response instructions sent from the ESO.
This means that when the grid is strained during peak energy usage periods, EV drivers can restrain from charging their vehicles until periods of lessened demand.
The trail began last week and will run until April 2024, as part of a wider project aiming to make balancing mechanism (BM) operational metering standards more accessible for small-scale assets, such as EVs and domestic battery storage. This would allow the technologies to actively participate in grid balancing services.
The trial follows a similar vehicle-to-grid (V2G) joint project between octopus Energy Group and ESO which saw the system operator send a series of signals to Octopus between 17:00-05:00 over 3-5 August 2022, which then charged and discharged 20 EVs depending on the needs of the BM.
The potential of V2G technology both in relieving strain on the grid and in selling energy back is a continued hot-topic in the UK’s EV industry.
Earlier this year Current± sat down with Octopus EV’s Claire Miller, to discuss how renewable technology integration can unlock a smarter energy system.
