THE Electric Nation request for EV drivers to take part in its Vehicle to Grid (V2G) trial has had a huge response: within a week it has 200 drivers registered.
Many of the applicants have two EVs already or are planning to acquire a second electric car.
The V2G project aims to demonstrate how V2G technology can provide a solution to potential electricity grid capacity issues as the number of EVs increases and places additional load on the national grid.
The trial has been organised by Electric Nation – a project of Western Power Distribution (WPD), in partnership with CrowdCharge. It wants to recruit 100 Nissan EV owners inthe Midlands, South West and South Wales to take part in the trial of Vehicle to Grid smart charging technology. Currently, only Nissan EVs are able to be used for V2G charging due to their CHAdeMO technology.
Of the 200 drivers who have already applied to join the project, the following data had emerged:
- 95% of applicants have a Nissan Leaf, 5% have a Nissan e-NV200
- 20% of applicants currently have two EVs at their property
- 1% of applicants have more than two EVs at their property
- 3% of applicants with one EV have ordered a second EV
- 18% of applicants with one EV are very likely to acquire a second EV in the future
- 27% of applicants with one EV are likely to acquire a second EV in the future
- 41% of applicants with two EVs also had a Nissan Leaf as their second EV.
Electric Nation differs from other V2G projects because it is using up to five different energy suppliers instead of just one. As a result it hopes to have a more realistic simulation of a future world in which many streets will have a number of EVs using V2G chargers operated by different energy suppliers.
In the Electric Nation trial each supplier will use their chargers to test their various energy services utilising CrowdCharge’s demand management charger platform, which provides optimised charging sessions.
The V2G trial follows the first Electric Nation project from 2018/19 which at the time was the world’s largest EV smart charging trial, providing real life insight into people’s habits when charging their vehicle. The trial provided data from more than two million hours of car charging, revealing the user habits on timings of charge, where and for how long, as well as the impact of different tariffs.
Ralph Morton is the leading journalist in the leasing broker sector and editor of Broker News, the website which provides information and news for BVRLA-registered leasing brokers. He also writes extensively on the fleet and leasing market in both the UK and Europe.
