Groupe Renault launching large-scale V2G trials with fleet of 15 Zoe EVs
22 March 2019
Groupe Renault is beginning the first large-scale pilot schemes in alternating-current, vehicle-to-grid (V2G) charging in electric vehicles. The pilot schemes will begin in the Netherlands and Portugal.
Groupe Renault places the reversible charger inside vehicles, so it just requires a simple, inexpensive adaptation of the existing charging terminals to implement V2G charging.
A fleet of fifteen Zoe vehicles with V2G charging will be introduced in Europe over the course of 2019 to develop future offerings in reversible charging and to lay the groundwork for the future standards.
These pilot schemes will begin today in Utrecht (the Netherlands) in an ecosystem developed by We Drive Solar and on Porto Santo Island (in the archipelago of Madeira, Portugal) with Empresa de Electricidade da Madeira, an energy supplier. Following these, more pilot schemes will be introduced in France, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark.
Vehicle-to-grid charging is a key pillar of the smart electric ecosystems that Groupe Renault has set up. We have chosen onboard technology that also optimizes the cost of recharging stations and thus facilitate a large-scale development.
—Gilles Normand, Groupe Renault’s director of electric vehicles
Vehicle-to-grid charging—also called reversible charging—modulates the charging and discharging of electric-vehicle batteries in accordance with users’ needs and the grid’s supply of available electricity.
Charging reaches its maximum level when the electricity supply exceeds demand, notably during peaks in production of renewable energy. Vehicles are also capable of injecting electricity into the grid during peaks in consumption. Electric vehicles can therefore serve units of temporary energy storage and become key drivers in the development of renewable energy.
In this way, the electricity grid optimizes the supply of local renewable energy and reduces infrastructure costs. At the same time, customers enjoy greener, more economical consumption of electricity and are financially rewarded for serving the electricity grid.
In particular, these pilot schemes will help:
Underline the technical and economic advantages of an onboard solution in electric vehicles.
Demonstrate the value of services provided for the local and national electricity grid, such as encouraging consumption of solar and wind energy, checking the grid’s frequency or tension, and reducing infrastructure costs.
Work on the regulatory frameworks of a mobile energy-storage scheme, detecting any pitfalls in it and offering concrete solutions.
Establish common standards, the basic requirement for an industrial-scale roll-out.
At last, the grid regulation scheme invented and tested by AC Propulsion more than 15 years ago is hitting the streets!
This really isn't suitable for more than regulation (balancing minute-by-minute differences between generation and demand) though. Vehicle batteries simply do not have the capacity for bulk storage and both cycling issues and the need to have energy for driving prohibit any such use.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 22 March 2019 at 06:58 AM
@EP I agree - it is fine as long as the grid stays within 20-80% capacity on your battery.
You might allow them to 90% a few times a year, just not habitually.
Once it is set up, however, you might as well use it.
Posted by: mahonj | 22 March 2019 at 11:51 AM
The world extended range BEV/FCEV fleet (with very large long life batteries and robust FCs) will increase drastically, as soon as lower cost improved batteries/FCs are mass produced and so will the percentage of energy produced with intermittent REs.
More REs become a reality when more storage facilities become available. The energy stored in 10+++ million extended range BEVs and FCEVs can become an ideal source of clean back-up energy to cover peak demand periods. Extended range FCEVs could refill anytime and BEVs after peak demands have passed.
Higher power (15+ MW) wind turbines and 50+% solar capture panels will be available in the 2020/2030s and will progressively produce more of the world clean e-energy and H2 at a very competitive price.
The world has no time to wait for effective fusion power (2099+) to replace current CPPs, NGPPs and NPPs.
Posted by: HarveyD | 22 March 2019 at 01:03 PM
A long one. Must have been running short of his word quota for the week.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 23 March 2019 at 05:03 AM
It is difficult to admit (for SAEP) that improved energy management is one of the promising avenue to phase out current polluting energy sources (CPPs, NGPPs etc).
Energy exchange between suppliers and users will be one of the favoured way to get increased efficiency of fixed power plants and to increase the use more intermittent Solar and Wind REs in the future.
Cladding new and existing buildings, factories and residences with mass produced, very thin/light, very low cost, transparent, printed solar panels will produce a major part of the energy required. The excess energy produced during sunlight hours will be stored in lower cost ($25/kWh) batteries to supply energy for most of the sunless-dark hours.
Many homes will be able to use (exchange/sell) some of the energy stored in their extended range BEVs/GFCEVs
Posted by: HarveyD | 23 March 2019 at 10:12 AM
It is impossible for AlzHarvey to admit that energy management cannot deal with energy absence, yet that is the problem that unreliable wind and solar have and cannot fix: they go AWOL and there's nothing you can do about it.
AlzHarvey talks about "24/7 renewables" but he cannot name even ONE that scales. The whole reason for nuclear power is that it has zero emissions and runs 24/7. AlzHarvey calls nuclear "polluting" but he can't name any ecological damage or even one illness that people suffer which is caused by said "pollution". AlzHarvey is a mindless repeater of Green propaganda. I am forced to assume he is paid to do so.
In the real world, it looks like the Gigafactory that was supposed to produce solar shingles in New York is in deep trouble.
Store it in unicorns, there's just as much evidence for them. (Sadoway's Ambri seems to have fallen out of the news; it looks like the "battery from dirt" idea is not working out.)
It cannot have escaped people's attention that the distraction AlzHarvey sows is engineered to keep the public from demanding we switch to clean nuclear power. This benefits only the fossil industry. Paid or unpaid, HarveyD works for them.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 23 March 2019 at 04:31 PM
Regardless of SAEP's known preference for very costly NPPs, the world is rapidly switching to much lower cost 24/7 REs as main energy sources.
The principal switching factor may be lower initial and ongoing cost and easier-potentially lower cost energy distribution. As more and more users produce an important part of the energy they require, the back-up grid will be lighter and cost less.
Making better use of future (xxxM) extended range BEVs/FCEVs energy storage capabilities, equipped with controllable reversible chargers, will enable improved energy production/distribution management and better use of lower cost REs, to replace current polluting CPPs and NGPPs and greatly reduce pollution and GHGs.
Of course, a few hundred/thousand new NPPs could also do it but would require more initial financial resources for the reactor sites and for improved national grids. The final energy price for end users would be (up to +100%) higher. Ontario is a good example.
There are no technical reasons why future building, factories and residences cannot be built to use less energy and equipped to produce most of the energy they require. Changes to building codes may be it.
Posted by: HarveyD | 24 March 2019 at 09:34 AM
AlzHarvey, I have asked you time and time again to state specifically which REs are 24/7. You always refuse to answer. That's because of the obvious: besides hydro the only other is geothermal, which has a total feasible capacity of a few GW in the entire continent of North America. Neither one can be expanded to any great degree.
AlzHarvey, if you actually paid attention or did research, you'd find that wind (the cheapest of all the "renewables") has a median cost of about $1600/kW(e) (nameplate capacity). Given the ~32% capacity factor of wind, that's about $5000/kW(e) of average generation. If you are going to have an all-"renewable" grid, you have to add the cost of storage to that and account for the cost of the losses in storage.
Cal Abel's scheme for heat-buffering a nuclear heat source to provide load-following capability at upwards of 99% match to demand comes in at $2979/kW(e) (nameplate) with all cost of storage included.
Vehicles make poor storage systems; they have a completely different purpose. The most feasible use of PEVs for buffering the grid is as "regulation": varying the charging rate to offset other short-term changes in electric demand. With a big enough fleet, bidirectional systems become superfluous and a waste of money.
AlzHarvey, the grid for "renewables" costs at least twice as much as the grid for conventional generation. The "renewable" grid requires operating at a capacity factor no more than its most productive source of generation (wind at ~32% CF) while a nuclear plant using heat storage to follow load can operate at the grid's capacity factor of 61.7% (typical). That all-nuclear grid would require about half the net capacity to move the same amount of energy.
AlzHarvey, Ontario's electric rates were very low UNTIL the Liberal party decided to go "renewable" and discourage energy consumption by jacking prices up and offer ridiculous subsidies to wind and PV.
Your "cure" is literally more of the disease.
And yes, it would take some thousands of S-PRISMs or equivalent to take the USA completely off fossil fuels. And I mean COMPLETELY off: electricity, space heat, industrial process heat, motor fuel, jet fuel, everything. But just generating the average US electric demand with 3 MW wind turbines at 32% capacity factor would take almost FOUR HUNDRED SEVENTY THOUSAND of them, plus massive storage systems and a hugely expanded HV transmission grid to get power from far-flung wind farms to load centers... and that would completely ignore space heating, industry and transportation.
I know I can repeat this until I die of exhaustion, and I won't change your tune. You are either not smart enough to grasp that you're wrong, or paid to push your line. I write for the people who read these pages and have the wits to understand the propaganda war in Western society.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | 29 March 2019 at 05:53 PM