UK EV owners can sell power to grid in Nissan trial

Electric vehicle (EV) owners in the UK will be able to sell power back to the National Grid under a new scheme unveiled by Nissan. It will install and connect […]

Electric vehicle (EV) owners in the UK will be able to sell power back to the National Grid under a new scheme unveiled by Nissan.

It will install and connect 100 vehicle-to-grid (V2G) units at locations agreed by private and fleet owners of the Nissan LEAF and e-NV200 electric van.

Owners of those vehicles will have the flexibility and power to sell stored energy from their car battery back to the National Grid.

It is claimed to be the first trial of its kind in the UK.

The car manufacturer, which is working with power company Enel, believes the project will revolutionise how energy is supplied to the grid.

It adds V2G technology allows EVs to be fully integrated into the electricity grid and help improve grid capability to handle renewable power, making green sources even more widely integrated and affordable.

If all 18,000 EVs in the UK were connected to the energy network, they would generate the equivalent of a power plant with a capacity of 180MW, it adds.

If that was scaled up in the future where all vehicles on UK roads were electric, it could generate a virtual power plant of up to 370GW – enough to power the UK, France and Germany.

Steven Holliday, Non-Executive Director, National Grid, said: “At National Grid we are constantly looking to the future to ensure we have the capacity to meet national energy demand – it’s our job to future proof the national transmission network. The rapid uptake of electric vehicles is certainly positive yet could also be challenging if we don’t plan ahead to understand precisely what effect this new technology will have on the electricity system.

“Our Future Energy team predict that there could be up to 700,000 Electric Vehicles in 2020 requiring an extra 500MW of energy. That’s why we support innovative technologies and pioneering projects such as this one that have the potential to make a real difference to the way we manage energy supply and demand.”

Earlier this year ELN spoke to car manufacturers and experts about challenges in the EV industry.

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