What is Vehicle to Grid (V2G) Technology?
What is Vehicle to Grid?
Vehicle-to-Grid, or V2G, is a bidirectional charging technology that allows the batteries in electric vehicles to provide power back to the utility grid when it is of greatest need.
Benefits of V2G
Backup Power During Emergencies
Extreme weather and times of high demand are challenging the electric grid’s resilience and ability to deliver reliable electricity across the US. Power outages during these times show why it’s important to keep essential services such as schools, nursing homes, and healthcare facilities online.
As the grid evolves and a growing number of services and products become electrified, electric grids will require new solutions like V2G to remain reliable and resilient. V2G-enabled electric school buses are batteries on wheels that allow for greater electric grid flexibility.
Grid Resiliency
Vehicle-to-Grid technology allows electric vehicles (EVs) to draw energy from the grid (typically during periods of low cost and low demand) and discharge energy back to the grid (during periods of high cost and high demand), helping stabilize local electric grids.
Lower Electricity Costs
V2G can also help reduce energy costs associated with owning and operating EV fleets. An increasing number of electric utilities, like National Grid in Massachusetts and Green Mountain Power in Vermont, support programs that pay EV fleets and other battery storage resources to discharge energy–turning them into revenue-generating assets without disrupting normal operations.
How Does V2G Work?
V2G transforms EVs, such as electric school buses, into large mobile batteries that can help stabilize the electric grid.
By integrating V2G infrastructure with utility demand response platforms, signals from the utility instruct the bidirectional chargers to either charge or discharge the EV, based on local grid conditions and capacity needs, in real time. As an aggregated fleet, this creates a flexible and dispatchable power source of many megawatts– individual vehicle batteries have between 0.15-0.30 MWh of available capacity – from a single location.
Here’s what V2G impact could look like in your community:
Electric School Buses and V2G Technology
Electric buses are a solution to grid issues
- Despite running on electricity, electric buses can actually improve the grid in your community. Our smart charging platform ensures that buses only charge during the times of day with the lowest demand, helping stabilize the grid.
- Using built-in Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology, buses can also send extra energy from their battery back to the grid to help the community stay online during the hottest/coldest days. Buses then top up later in the day after demand decreases. All of this happens in the background and never impacts your daily routes.
A V2G-enabled electric vehicle charging station at South Burlington School District in Vermont.