OVO Energy is helping us change the way we think about reducing our emissions through lower-impact home energy and e-mobility – whether it’s through 100% renewable electricity*, its e-bike scheme or creating more UK green spaces through its Tree Planting Promise.
Now OVO Energy is changing the way we connect to the grid with Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology. V2G is a unique way of using your electric car’s battery as part of a two-way home energy ecosystem – helping you reduce the cost of your energy bills, and helping the broader energy grid to more efficiently manage energy usage during peak hours.
V2G may sound like something of a sci-fi future, but – working with partners Nissan, Indra, Cenex and Kaluza – OVO Energy has just conducted the world’s largest trial of bi-directional technology, to explore what it’s like to use in practice and live with every day. We sat down with Paul Kershaw – one of 320 participants in OVO Energy’s V2G trial – to find out how he found it.
Learn more about OVO Energy’s V2G trial
How V2G is different to standard home charging
First, how does V2G work? Well, a typical home EV charger – which tops up your electric car using electricity from your home supply – is what the industry calls unidirectional (or one-way). With bi-directional (two-way) chargers, electricity can flow both ways, including from your electric car back to the grid.
At peak times when energy demand is at its highest, our national energy grid is under a lot of pressure, making electricity more expensive and increasing the risk of power surges and blackouts. As the average UK car spends 96% of the time parked up – with 73% of that time at home – V2G provides the perfect chance to use what would otherwise be an idle battery sitting dormant on your driveway as an energy store and supply.
The result: with an estimated 140-240 million EVs on the road globally by 2030**, we have the potential to harness a huge amount of energy with relatively minimal effort. A network of batteries waiting in the wings, ready to balance our grid at a moment’s notice.How getting V2G installed is easier than you think