Massachusetts, US, is set to launch a two-year vehicle-to-everything (V2X) trial to showcase the technology’s benefits for the state grid.
Resource Innovations (RI), a provider of clean energy solutions, and The Mobility House (TMH), a company dedicated to vehicle-grid integration (VGI) technology, will lead the demonstration programme. The Massachusetts Clean Energy Centre has selected both to spearhead the development.
One hundred bidirectional chargers will be installed statewide, specifically targeting residential, school bus, municipal, and commercial fleet participants. The bidirectional chargers will provide an estimated 1.5MW of new energy storage capacity.
“V2X technology is key to leveraging EVs as assets to the grid, both as a financial resource and improving reliability,” said Rachel Ackerman, senior director of clean transportation at the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center.
“Through a targeted deployment of bidirectional chargers across various sectors, barriers can be quickly identified and resolved, demonstrating a clear pathway for an accelerated application of V2X technology. MassCEC’s V2X program is a crucial step in Massachusetts’s efforts to enable wide-scale adoption of EVs.”
Numerous V2X initiatives have been announced in recent months. For example, energy software firm Kaluza recently partnered with Wallbox to pilot EV V2X charging technology to customers in California, US.
Funded by a £1.1 million investment from the California Energy Commission’s (CEC) Responsive, Easy Charging Products with Dynamic Signals (REDWDS) grant, the partners will leverage Kaluza’s proven software to deploy managed charging solutions that make EVs more accessible for customers.
Global interest in V2X technology mounts
V2G, which is encompassed within V2X, is increasingly being viewed as a means to provide flexible energy storage while also facilitating the decarbonisation of the global transportation sector. This coupling of the sectors could also impact the public’s understanding of the electricity system and aid the energy transition by granting educational benefits.
The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) recently highlighted the technology’s benefits in reducing electricity bills, coinciding with Cornwall Insight’s findings that V2G could reduce UK EV driver electricity costs by around 70%. Our sister publication, Energy-Storage.news, recently spoke with Charlie Walker, CEO and co-founder and Marc Sheldon, chief operating officer at RedEarth, a battery storage company based in Queensland, about V2G and vehicle-to-everything (V2X) in Australia, in an article available to the site’s Premium subscribers.
