Batteries on wheels

A new report from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has highlighted the huge promise of electric vehicles as batteries on wheels, potentially accounting for a huge amount of low cost energy storage to support the renewable transition.

The report suggests that new policy should make both Vehicle to Grid (V2G) and Vehicle to Home and Building (V2H/B) a priority.

“Australia’s EV vehicle fleet will be largest and lowest cost potential storage resource in our energy transition,” the report says.

“National EV policy should signal that we value V2G and V2H/B as a near term priority for industry development and we should set out a V2G vision in our National EV Strategy.”

While renewables will be able to fill most of our energy needs, they are variable, which means that battery storage will be required as part of the National Energy Market (NEM) to ensure that people can still use power at all times of the day.

According to the report, the total storage requirements for the NEM will be 640GWh in 2050. But by 2050, Australia’s EV fleet will have almost 2,400 GWh capacity, so even if only a fraction of electric vehicle owners had the option for V2G, it could cheaply provide much of Australia’s energy storage.

“The challenge for Australia is establishing an effective framework to access the capacity that will already exist in our EV fleet,” the report says.

“The marginal cost of this is relatively low. Based on an incremental cost of purchasing an DC-AC Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE), we can expect capital costs in the order of to be around or $25,000/MWh, or 6% of current large-scale battery costs (~$400,000/MWh) on a simple per MWh basis.”

This is also useful for home or business battery storage, as the car can be charged through rooftop solar, and then the energy spent later in the day when electricity prices are higher. This both lowers pressure on the grid at peak times and provides cheaper energy for the owner.

However, like most things in the EV space, Australia is well behind other countries in V2G and V2H/B because of a lack of government support.

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Currently only South Australian Nissan Leaf owners are able to install V2G systems. More systems should be available in the next few years.

“Australia will be left behind in the early stages of global growth in V2G due to our limited engagement in international standards development and product certification processes for EVSE,” the report states.

Despite this, the report also suggests that Australians could rapidly warm to the technologies because we have high levels of adoption of other carbon free energy options like solar and batteries, and our current grid standards support the inclusion of this technology.

It’s worth noting that in a survey last year undertaken by The Driven and Jet Charge, it was found that most EV owners want to be able to do V2G or V2H.

For those looking to invest in V2G or V2H in the next few years, this is good news, as the report suggests the government may support, or at least limit regulation surrounding the transition.

“Despite the size of the prize, no Australian jurisdiction has policies or programs designed to promote V2G capability in our vehicle fleet, or consumer uptake,” the report concludes.

“This is understandable given the nascent state of vehicle and equipment supply chains however the headline from our analysis is that this will change quickly over the next two years.

It is time for Australian governments and regulators to get their skates on, and prepare the policy and regulatory frameworks, and industry support infrastructure, that will enable the benefits of V2G to be realised.”

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This article was first published on The Driven. You can read it here.