Global EV vehicle-to-grid trial launches in Oz

Australia could end up at the forefront of electric vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology depending on the findings of a new international trial being carried out by the University of Queensland.

Announced this week, the program will track the driving and charging habits of 500 Tesla vehicle owners across Australia, the US, Canada, Norway, Sweden, Germany and the UK to assess if the spare battery capacity of their electric cars can be used to “support uptake of renewable energy, support the grid, and even potentially power homes in the future”.

Co-funded by the federal government’s iMOVE Cooperative Research Centre and an Advance Queensland Industry Research Fellowship, the trial will use analytics platform Teslascope to collect vehicle usage data remotely via the vehicles’ API (application programming interface) software.

Queensland University’s e-mobility research fellow Dr Jake Whitehead said that while an increasing number of EVs are capable of covering more than 400km on a single charge, the majority of them are driven less than 50km a day.

“This provides a unique opportunity to leverage this spare energy capacity to absorb renewable energy generated in the middle of the day and overnight, and potentially even export energy to power homes and support the grid in the future using vehicle-to-grid chargers,” he said.

“We have a unique opportunity through this project to better understand EV driving and charging behaviour in different markets, and what are the opportunities to use EVs to provide energy services and generate extra income for owners in the future.”

An increasing number of EVs available in Australia are being released with V2G, including the Nissan LEAF that’s involved in a similar program running in the ACT.

Other electrified cars have smaller-scale vehicle-to-load (V2L) capabilities, including the Hyundai IONIQ 5 – which was this week named carsales’ 2021 Car of the Year – as well as the latest Mitsubishi Outlander and Eclipse Cross plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and the forthcoming Kia EV6.

However, only Tesla EVs such as the top-selling Tesla Model 3 offer accessible API, which Professor Whitehead hopes will change before the end of the trial so it can be expanded.

According to iMOVE managing director Ian Christensen, transport accounts for about 24 per cent of direct carbon dioxide emissions from fuel combustion globally.

“Electrification of transport has been identified as one of the major pathways for reducing emissions,” he said.

“By leveraging EV battery spare capacity and using smart charging technology, excess solar could be absorbed by vehicles parked during the day and potentially discharged to support the grid during the evening using vehicle-to-grid infrastructure.

“For smart charging infrastructure to deliver these benefits, EV uptake must be significantly increased, and importantly, EV owners must be willing to use their vehicles as ‘batteries-on-wheels’.”

Tesla owners are being recruited for the study. In return for allowing the researchers to access their vehicle’s usage data via the API, participants will be offered a 12-month premium subscription to Teslascope for no charge.

Tesla owners can express interest in participating here.