Nissan LEAF can now power your home

Nissan has timed the local launch of the new 2021 Nissan LEAF e+ to coincide with its official announcement that both the new variant and the existing LEAF will be compatible with V2G (vehicle-to-grid) infrastructure already being trialled in the ACT.

V2G is a value-added feature that none of the LEAF’s EV competitors can currently match, and here’s how it works.

Your LEAF charges from household solar panels (or green power from the grid, or even off-peak coal-fired power) during the day and then the flow of electrons is reversed at night through a wallbox, allowing the LEAF to become a battery to power your flat-screen TV, your desktop computer and all the lights in the home after the sun sets.

“Vehicle-to-grid is something we’re exceptionally excited about, and we’ve been doing a lot of work around the world and a lot of work locally,” said Ben Warren, national manager for electrification and mobility at Nissan, during the launch of the LEAF e+.

“There’s a lot to happen when you talk about vehicle-to-grid. Conceptually, it’s really easy, right? I want to take power out of that car and put it into that house ... but the detail behind that – there’s a bunch of things to work through in each market.”

There are two V2G trials currently underway in Australia. Nissan is collaborating with other stakeholders in one of those two trials, ‘REVS’.

“We have the REVS project, which is ‘Realising Electric Vehicle to grid Services’ – Australia’s first vehicle-to-grid program. We’ve been working away with a consortium of partners,” Warren explained.

“This is a really unique trial, because the project consortium cover energy, transport, charging, government – an entire ecosystem – to put this model together.”

The other project to which Warren referred was one led by AGL, “which has a vehicle-to-grid component to it”.

The system has the potential to save the homeowner/LEAF driver hundreds or even thousands of dollars off their electricity bill each year, potentially amortising the higher price of the LEAF e+ within three years.

However, owners will also have to purchase the wallbox separately from supplier JET Charge to interact between the LEAF and the grid.

Tim Washington, CEO of JET Charge – one of Nissan’s partners in REVS – was on hand during the presentation to answer questions from journalists.

He estimated that the wallbox – once the technology has “matured” – should cost about the same as a solar inverter. In the meantime, the wallbox is in the final stages of certification and is expected to be approved before the end of this year.

An advantage of the system, if adopted widely, is that it can reduce load on the grid during peak times.

And according to Warren, without recharging, the LEAF could supply power to a home for “two or three days” and the LEAF e+ – with its larger 62kWh battery – could do the same for “four or five days”, but results would vary with conditions and usage by individual families.

The Nissan exec also made the point that many home batteries only store up to around 10kWh, which is barely a quarter of the power available in even the affordable LEAF, let alone the LEAF e+.

It’s a massive difference in capacity, without leaving the LEAF driver short-changed for short commutes.