A pilot project that wants to test the potential of electric cars to stabilize the electricity grid started on Tuesday in Switzerland. For one year, the current of 50 electric vehicles will be fed back into the network from their battery when they are not driving.
The “V2X Switzerland” project was launched in Bern. It brings together seven companies and is overseen by the car-sharing company Mobility, the latter said in a press release. For this pilot project, it is providing 50 “Honda e”, spread over 40 locations across the country. According to the press release, this is the first large-scale test with production electric cars with two-way charging.
The objective of the test is to study for a year how electric cars can be used as batteries to fill electricity shortages and strengthen grid stability. If the entire Mobility car fleet of around 3,000 vehicles were technically equipped accordingly, its power would exceed that of a reservoir.
In particular, companies want to gain experience with technical and regulatory challenges. The project is designed in such a way that if successful, it can be directly transformed into a permanent operation.
A virtual reservoir
The basic idea of the project and the two-way charging is that electric cars not only consume current but can also reinject it, especially since cars are on average stationary for 23 hours per day. These stationary vehicles can thus be transformed into a gigantic battery capable of restoring energy, a bit like a reservoir.
Distribution system operators and households can thus use the current from electric cars during peak hours, while they are fully charged during the day – when the sun is shining – at a more advantageous rate, explains Mobility. On its site, the company specifies that the energy is fed back into the network for only 15 minutes so that there is always a sufficient reserve for the journeys.
ats/gma