A new project to develop a viable business model for “vehicle-to-everything” (V2X) charging has been launched by a consortium including energy technology firm Kaluza.
The Inflexion project, which also involves its parent company Ovo Energy, car manufacturer Volkswagen and smart charger provider Indra, will build on their previous work to offer vehicle-to-grid (V2G) charging capabilities to Ovo’s customers using Kaluza’s software and Indra’s hardware.
As well as feeding electricity back to the grid, V2X charging will allow drivers to use their electric vehicle to power their home, providing a backup energy source during outages.
As one of the world’s fastest-growing EV markets, Kaluza said the UK is a prime test bed for V2X technologies and business models. The company claimed if all 32 million vehicles in the country were electric, they could provide as much generation capacity (19.2GW) as 60% of the UK’s current fleet of gas plants.
“V2X will have a transformative effect on decarbonising our energy system but only if we make it accessible and affordable for all,” said Kaluza chief executive Scott Neuman.
“Inflexion is an exciting step for the industry to engage and learn from real EV drivers and bring this game changing technology closer to true, commercial scale.”
Ovo said drivers participating in their V2G trial have typically been able to earn around £420 per year for selling electricity to the grid. The supplier’s head of zero carbon living, Alex Thwaites, added: “This is not just about driving renewable energy solutions forward, it’s about demonstrating how customers can actually reduce their energy bills by making the switch to an EV. With Ovo’s V2G tariff trial we saw some EV drivers save up to £800 a year on their bills.”
Kaluza said the Inflexion project will include the first real-world use of bidirectional charging with the Combined Charging System (CCS) technology adopted by most modern EV models, including those sold by Volkswagen.
The Inflexion project is part of phase one of the V2X Innovation Programme being funded by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and delivered by Innovate UK, and has been awarded a grant of around £135,000.
The announcement comes after BEIS and Ofgem released a new plan “kickstart the market” for smart EV charging earlier this week
Energy and climate minister Graham Stuart said at the time: “We want to make smart charging an easier choice for drivers of electric vehicles, whether that is charging on the driveway, at the workplace, or parked on the street. To do that we need to build new network infrastructure at pace, using the latest available technologies.”