V2G technologies are gaining traction in Europe

The European V2Market project is coming to its final stretch and is doing so by generating knowledge on the use of electric car batteries for temporary electricity storage and grid flexibility services. The project’s concluding conference, held in June in the Belgian capital, showed that initiatives such as V2Market need to take the lead and make headway.

“You don’t have to wait for Europe”. This was the strong message of the European Commission during the final conference of the V2Market project held in Brussels in June. A clear message aimed at encouraging initiatives such as V2Market to break through and make progress in promoting the energy transition.

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These statements were reiterated throughout the final event, co-organised with smartEn – Smart Energy Europe (available also in online format) and served to delve deeper into the world of bi-directional charging of electric vehicles (EVs), a decentralised resource that could be crucial in the European Union’s clean energy transition. Led by Ecoserveis, the V2Market project focuses on exploring the benefits, challenges, and business models surrounding bi-directional charging to take advantage of the storage opportunities offered by electric vehicles.

Throughout the conference, which was attended not only by contributing partners of the project but also by members and experts in energy efficiency, electricity markets, and mobility from the European Commission, as well as other related stakeholders such as the energy transition, it served to share lessons learned and provide a set of policy recommendations aimed at unlocking the full potential of two-way charging of electric vehicles in Europe.

The importance of pilots

The V2Market explores the possibilities of the market and does so based on the results of two pilots implemented in Spain. One of them has been deployed with vehicles from the fleet of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona (AMB), and the other has been deployed in homes with photovoltaic self-consumption and electric vehicles, through the company Holaluz. These pilots have realistically simulated the electricity grid, thanks to an electricity market simulator developed by OMIE, where participation in local flexibility markets has also been simulated, and they have demonstrated that the batteries of electric vehicles can respond to the demands of the grid and buildings. Although the electricity market has been simulated, in order to demonstrate its feasibility, the charging and discharging of vehicles have been real, and they have used intelligent and automatic software (in the case of AMB) and real market prices on the days of the simulations.

Thus, the project has been able to carry out several feasibility studies, policy and regulatory recommendations, trainings, and innovative business and financing models, including innovative business models for potential aggregators. Aggregators are a new actor in the electricity sector, acting as an intermediary between consumers and grids to provide services such as flexibility and storage.

Knowledge transfer

One of the strong points of the project has been related to the exploitation of the knowledge obtained during the project, through the webinars and open online sessions that have been held, (among others). One of them, the most recent, has been the one promoted by the AMB and Ecoserveis, which has consisted of an online training to talk about electric vehicles and bidirectional charging points. Among other issues, it has allowed us to reflect on where we are in the energy transition and to explain the steps that are being taken on a European, state, Catalan, and local scale to move towards decarbonisation and the reduction of dependence on fossil fuels, as well as greenhouse gas emissions. The content is now open for viewing.

Conclusions drawn

According to what has been studied, it has been found that, for example, the batteries of electric vehicles can be used to store electricity from renewable sources when there is a surplus in the grid or in a building with self-consumption; and to discharge this energy when the grid or the building to which it is connected needs it. These actions require bi-directional chargers and are referred to as Vehicle to Grid (V2G) and Vehicle to Building (V2B). They are also generically referred to as V2X technologies. This increases the volume of renewables that can be integrated into the electricity system, but at the same time allows households and different economic sectors to use more energy than they produce themselves. This generates savings that could be passed on to the end consumer, which contributes to reducing overall consumption (as there would be fewer grid losses due to less grid use) and increasing the volume of renewables that can be integrated into the grid.

Even so, in order to enjoy these benefits, state regulations must change, because, for the moment, they do not allow this activity. For now, and despite the fact that the European Union has already modified its regulations on this model, there are very few European countries where this is possible.

In any case, the incorporation of V2X technology in electric vehicles and the regulatory deployment so that they can participate in the markets may be a way to accelerate the decarbonisation of the transport sector and, at the same time, make electric vehicles more affordable for the end user.

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