The future of energy — can EVs store our excess solar & wind?

Solar Questions and Comments
1

The future of energy — solar, batteries & EVs

The energy revolution isn’t coming. It’s here. Solar and wind have gone from a rounding error to a major force in just 15 years — and the growth is accelerating. Add the massive and accelerating rollout of batteries (both stationary and EVs), and there is no reason we can’t power the world with solar and wind.

What do you think?

Is it realistic — can we use EVs to store vast amounts of excess solar energy during the day, and release it at peak times in the evening?

Most of the world just needs more panels. At 17% globally, we’re nowhere near the grid limit in most countries. The answer is simply: build more.

But the leaders have a different problem. Countries like Australia, Denmark, and parts of California have so much solar that wholesale prices go negative at midday. That’s not a generation problem — it’s a storage problem.

The world’s biggest battery network is already being built — it’s EVs. A single EV battery (avg ~65 kWh) can power a home for 2–4 days. Cars sit parked 95% of the time. If we connect them to the grid while idle, we unlock an enormous and growing source of storage.

You may be hesitant about cycling (charge and discharge) your personal EVs more frequently, as it wears out your battery, but:

  1. Huge demand spikes don’t happen daily, EVs can be used to even out very high demand spikes, which may happen once a month on average. Electricity prices can shoot up 50x in these events - discharging 50kWh onto the grid can make up to $500 in peak demand events, in an hour (see our V2G calculator as reference).
  2. Beyond personal vehicles, EV batteries are getting much cheaper, and will be rolled out in vast commercial fleets. The economics will likely make sense to use those EVs for dual purpose, powering transport, and evening out electricity supply and demand spikes.

Country leaders for solar + wind share (2025):

  • Denmark — 71%
  • Netherlands — 46%
  • Germany — 45%
  • Australia — 33%
  • Global average — 17%

Full article with sources and data:

Question for the community:

  1. Has your country or region hit the point where storage matters more than generation?
  2. Would you use your EV as home backup or grid storage if V2G was available to you?
  3. What’s holding back the transition where you are — cost, policy, grid infrastructure, or something else?
2

In Australia, electricity retailers are now offering up to 4 hours of free power during the middle of the day (from 10am to 2pm) to encourage people to use more of the excess solar. There is so much excess energy being generated that wholesale electricity prices are negative for for up to 6 hours a day in summer. This is where thousands of EVs with V2G being charged during the day could then be used to offset the peak demand in the evening which would completely transform our energy system.

3 Likes