On 27 Feb., the project became an official participant in the PJM’s frequency regulation market. Frequency regulations is used to balance supply and demand on the grid second-by-second. Since then, the project has been selling power services from a fleet of EVs to PJM, whose territory has 60 million people in the 13 mid-Atlantic states.

A key aspect of the technology is that it can aggregate power from multiple electric vehicles to create one larger power resource, rather than individual, smaller ones. Additional company partnerships that make up the entire system shown today include BMW AG providing the EVs, Milbank Manufacturing providing charging stations based on UD technology, AutoPort Inc. installing UD control technology into the EVs and others.

PJM changed rules for participation in the regulation service market to decrease the minimum amount of power needed to participate and we implemented new rules that recognize and compensate faster, more accurately responding resources, such as batteries. We knew that by doing so would attract innovation and would find potential for energy storage or other technologies. We’re glad to be a part of this project and hope that this inspires continued innovation among our partners and others in the industry.

— Michael J. Kormos, senior vice president of PJM Operations

The technology is expected to initially help managers of commercial EV fleets by providing revenue while the vehicles are parked, with individual EV owners to eventually follow. The system is currently in development with restricted test fleets and is not now a commercial offering.