I’m based in the UK and have been watching this forum for many months. I did a lot of renovation to my house and added roof mounting for 20 panels. I have already fitted 10 East facing panels and the other 10 will all be South facing (Panasonic 335w and Enphase Micro Inverters IQ7X). I planned to also add 9.6kW battery storage system to make it worth while in storing my produced energy (I have a Zero Export limit by the local DNO). My plan is to cover my home electrical requirements during the afternoon and evening when the cost of electric is at its highest.
Recently i have been looking at the newest technology of Vehicle to Grid (V2G) and thinking that rather than buy a 9.6kW Battery system (AC Coupled) which will cost around GBP 10,000 and also an electric car later…why not skip on the dedicated home battery system and just go with a 40kW battery storage of the electric car. With V2G smart chargers like the Quasar-dc-charger https://wallbox.com/en_uk/quasar-dc-charger we would only use the electric vehicle for local school runs and shopping and it would always be plugged in to the home charger from 16:00 every day.
making use of the limited UK solar power generation together with night time cheap rate Electric from the utility company between 00:30-04:00 it should be possible to discharge the vehicle battery to run the home in evenings and then charge up to a required % to cover the next days vehicle mileage and based on the forecast sun and solar production.
Do you guys have anything like the V2G on your market? I think this is a real revolutionary idea and the way forward for many homes that have electric vehicles. The utility providers here are starting to look at this technology but want to commercialize it to their benefit, so try to tie you to they higher fixed tariffs so that you pay for their electric and allow them to export your vehicle battery power out to the grid during the high load periods! There are some incentives being offered but the bottom line is they get you to supply and pay for the resource (vehicle battery) and provide a way for them to manage their load balancing at lower costs to themselves. Great for them but not so great for the consumer.
Great topic @angusc. Welcome, glad you’ve found us, and that you have been reading along.
We’ve been talking about this a lot recently. What you have described is the future as we see it, I was just writing about this situation here:
I need to do some further research, I think @Svarky knows more, but my understanding is that some EVs already have the ability to send electricity back to the house (and grid) built in. Although the device you mention here seems like a winner too. Do you have a price for it?
My only thoughts would be that perhaps you could do with more than 20 solar panels? Would any more fit on your roof? Although maybe that’s not such a ‘no brainer’ as it is in Australia due to fewer sunlight hours.
Keen to hear more on this topic, and whether there are EVs with built in V2G capability.
From my research, only Nissan and Mitsubishi currently offer V2G (two way charging) but other manufactures are likely to follow…just when.
In today’s capitalist World everyone is looking to make money from this situation. DNO’s are looking at ways to support their aging infrastructure and expand without massive further investments (getting the consumer to buy the hardware (EV) and install the required V2G charger and sign up for their higher rate tariffs in the bargain! Lease cars are looking at this with a view to increased sales, V2G charger manufactures are looking to sell their hardware at premium cost.
I’m not sure there is a private market availability of these chargers yet, a couple seen to be topped to the utilities providers here in UK like OVO, UK Power Networks and Octopus. They are teaming up with the car manufacturers to sign up the consumer to a new car, higher tariffs. With the reward offering of some monthly pay back for plugging in your car to the grid. Payback is limited to a few 10’s of pounds each month.
There are Chinese companies suggesting that they have V2G chargers but no concrete details or retail process available yet.
I would love to hear from anyone else with other information.