Post by Dr. Christopher Hecht

V2G finally has its moment to become a reality in Germany: The double-taxation will be removed and vehicles can serve as storage capacity that the grid so desperately needs. What are the next steps? 💵 Business cases and customer offers need to be created. Depending on your assumptions, a vehicle can earn up to ~1000€ per year by providing flexibility. This revenue needs to cover the additional hardware costs for the bidirectional charger (~2000€) and the process costs of all actors in the ecosystem. 🔢 Smart meters need to be rolled out with priority to those customers who want to participate in the scheme to speed up adoption. 👤 Customers need to be identified. Most recent offers by The Mobility House Energy with Mobilize/Renault Group as well as Octopus Energy with BYD focussed on small vehicles, but with Mercedes-Benz AG and BMW Group, two luxury brands are also pushing the topic. 📊 Markets need to be identified. With strong growth in stationary projects and comparable per kW costs (2000€ for a 10 kW bidi charger vs. ~200 €/kW for a stationary system), it needs to be evaluated where the additional value of bidi really lies. My take: grids! ⌗ We need to ensure that grids benefit from the flexibility that will come into the system in the near future. All actors are more than happy to act in a grid-friendly manner, e.g. through a local grid traffic light or alike. Vehicles and stationary systems can and will massively reduce grid costs if done properly. Let's get the regulatory framework for this in place! 🎓 Customers need to be educated about the new option. This is especially relevant when looking at the battery degradation that people dramatically overestimate but also with regards to range anxiety (most operators keep a sufficient SOC buffer for spontaneous trips)