A radical new scheme, introduced by the National Grid in partnership with Octopus Energy, is being piloted on an initial 135 households across England and Wales. As the announcement by Ofgem in early February sees energy prices rise by 56% from last year due to the global energy crisis, the idea behind the scheme seeks to offset the pressure on the U.K.’s infrastructure, which will see the National Grid extract energy from electric vehicles (EVs) during times of high demand and energy shortages.
EVs with a Vehicle to Grid (V2G) battery will be able to take advantage of the fact that the cars spend most of the day parked. As such, those vehicles with V2G batteries can negate the strain by balancing the grid through the vehicle’s battery’s stored energy, directing energy back to the vehicle to recharge the battery so it is ready for usage when needed. Additionally, vehicles may be used to power homes during hours of peak demand and set the vehicle to recharge during hours of non-peak demand, such as early morning hours. It has been reported that those involved in the scheme will be able to earn up to 60p per hour for the energy they send to the grid.
As the year 2035 approaches, in which the U.K. promised to eliminate the sale of emission producing vehicles, the success of the National Grid pilot scheme could give an insight into the plan to subsidise rising energy cost as well as balance the growing demands for effective EV infrastructure. Julian Leslie, the chief engineer at the network operator National Grid ESO, hinted about mass adoption, suggesting that “if we can get 10 million vehicles doing vehicle-to-grid, then fantastic.”
