How electric vehicles can support renewable energy sources

What is V2H/V2G?
V2H stands for “vehicle-to-home” whilst V2G is “vehicle-to-grid”. This is a technology that enables energy to be pushed back from the electric vehicle’s battery to power the connected property or grid.

With V2H/V2G technology, a car battery can be charged and discharged based on different signals — such as related energy production or consumption nearby.

The idea behind vehicle-to-grid is similar to regular vehicle smart charging (V1G). V1G charging, enables you to control the charging of the EV in a way that allows the power to be increased and decreased when needed or most cost effective. V2H/V2G enables the charged power to also be momentarily pushed back to the home or grid from car batteries to balance variations in energy production and consumption.

Why should I care about V2H/V2G?
Of course, one of the main qualities of EVs are their low impact on the environment. V2H/V2G helps mitigate climate change by allowing our energy system to balance more renewable energy.

The transport sector is doing its fair share of carbon reduction and the number of electric vehicles is increasing steadily. Electric vehicle batteries are by far the most cost-efficient form of energy storage, since they require no additional investments on hardware.

The yearly sales of EVs are expected to reach over 20 million before 2030, which means that we’ll have over 100 million comparatively tiny energy storages on wheels with an aggregated storage capacity of 5 TWh. Vehicle-to-grid technology enables us to make the best use of the existing population of vehicles.

Stationary energy storage is also becoming more common. This is a handy way of storing energy from, for instance, solar power arrays. These home batteries, together with solar panels and home EV charging stations, are a great way to balance out energy production and consumption in detached houses or small communities.