Batteries on Wheels can they Solve the UK’s Power Shortage

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this is not an electric car and neither is that  or that and that's certainly not an electric car   what they are in fact are batteries with wheels  that even say so on this display here but the   great thing about these new batteries with wheels  is you get some seats sat nav and you might even   have a sound system there but today we're going to  travel in this battery on wheels to an electrical   installation as part of the future where this  battery on wheels becomes part of the power grid   not just to power your house but to potentially  power everybody's house so i've arrived here   just outside of ipswich and this car in front  of us here is actually providing power to the   grid we're here to meet claire miller director of  technology and innovation of octopus electric vehicles   to find out more so claire thanks for inviting me  along to see the future and if you haven't guessed   already what we're looking at it is vehicle  to grid technology (V2G) so using your car battery   on that battery on wheels to power this house but  also support the national grid network why do we need that   so yeah batteries on wheels and why do we need to  be doing this i think it's a bit counter-intuitive   while i charge my car and then want to take energy  out of the battery once i've got it in there   because i want to drive my car around and i think  it is that concept of thinking about your car as   a car at some times and as a battery on wheels at  others so actually if we can take a bit of energy   out of your vehicle and my vehicle thousands and  thousands of evs in the future that can really   help to support the grid at times when there's  a really high demand on the grid so think about   tea time we'll come home we've got induction hubs  kettles actually across the whole country we're   all doing that but the load on the grid starts to  go up and up and up and to meet that high load at   the moment we have to burn gas so we want to get  away from burning fossil fuels for lots of reasons   one way to do that is actually bring more  renewables onto the grid so wind and solar   we can use that to put in our vehicles when that's  abundant so maybe when it's windy and sunny we can   store that in our vehicles and then at tee time  when the grid load starts to go up and up and up   we take a bit of that from each of those vehicles  when there's high load to share that with your   neighbours show that back to the grid and and the  other part which all evs can do and are doing more   and more is having a place to store energy made by  renewables both those things together is vehicle   to grid okay i mean i've looked i was the evs  that the batteries compared to actually what most   people travel on a daily basis there is enormous  capacity in those batteries isn't it i don't know   what the average commute 15 miles each way per day  yet you've got a car that might do two or three   hundred miles so for most people that should be  trivial really we hear a lot about range anxiety   will my battery take me to where i want it to go  and for most people these batteries are pretty   big compared to what they're doing day to day  so yeah about 15 miles maybe 20 miles a day   a 200 mile battery range is going to last you a  very long time we can start to use that battery   to help support the grid help to give a place to  store energy in that way you're really maximizing   that battery so you know you might not be driving  around that much and also you might hear cars are   parked up a lot you know we use them each side of  the day often for a commute and in between they're   parked up using that battery that vehicle in lots  of different ways more than just driving around   yes i mean it's a different way for people  to think isn't it yeah totally yeah this is   yeah for some people yeah that sounds common sense  but you're going to take energy awfully and charge   me again i'm thinking of pounds why why would  i want to do that what's in it for me why would   you want to do that uh because you're a very good  samaritan gordon and you want to share with a grid   um share with the world but actually you know  at octopus the way that we see this working   is actually we want to give the customers  great tariffs coming into their home but also   you're giving some energy back to the grid you're  exporting so we have a tariff that goes in the   other direction as well where you get paid two  tariffs one that comes in your standard one one   that goes out which you might not be familiar  with if you haven't got solar if you haven't got   a battery yet and actually by making the tariff  cheap for customers overnight at times at which   they might also be providing their battery  to store energy outside of that cheap window   and then for paying customers when they do  give energy back to the grid again we have   a window of time and actually outside of that  if there are times when the grid is calling for   extra energy vcg can get involved in that as well  we can reward customers that way so just to unpack   that you've got a really attractive tariff when  there's loads of renewables available at night   the winds turning those turbines you know the  grid needs somewhere to get rid of that energy   and storing it in batteries but then  the flip side of it is you can also   earn money by giving some of that energy back  when we're in those busy peak periods when the   grid's got a lot of demand yeah that's it  and again at octopus as an energy business   we want to give customers confidence that they're  getting a really good tariff and we want to make   it really simple as well we are thinking about  this as hundreds of thousands of customers it's   our first smart charging tariff and it does that  overnight piece that you mentioned so actually we   tell your car when to charge and when to not  charge overnight to make best use and best   support of the grid when it is windy when there  are renewables available and in return for that we   give customers our best tariffs so it's seven and  a half p per kilowatt hour overnight at the moment   between half 11 and then half 5 am and also the  system is so clever that if it can if it detects   from a signal from the grid a message coming in  to say hey look it's a really windy evening we   want to charge cars at 10 pm or 9 pm we'll also  give customers that cheap rate at those times   as well giving the grid somewhere to put this  renewable energy we think it's really important   that customers can participate in that and get  like good tariff for that power loop takes it   even further vehicle to grid when you give energy  back to the grid you should have security about   what you're going to get for that again our system  automatically detects when the grid needs energy   takes in messages coming in from the grid from  your local grid from the national grid and others   and says hey export energy to the grid now we'll  give you this tariff and if it's exporting outside   of those times you'll still get that really great  tariff yeah because there's some people yeah some   people like to live and breathe this and i've seen  some of these energy apps we've used the my energy   one in the past oh yeah for a few weeks it's  quite addictive watching the power flow but then   normal life returns and you have to do things and  just having that automatically in the background   is great and you've deployed it in your own house  yeah here we are sitting in my house and i've   had vehicle degrade running since august 2020 i  wouldn't want to do something to a customer that   i wouldn't do to my own house and my own family  um so yeah we've lived with it here and actually   we've we've developed like the app the service  the scheduling so the whole thing you know works   on schedules you let the system know when you  want your car back and how much charge you want   in your vehicle and like learning to trust the  system so i've lived and breathed that i think   the other thing that's important is around the  limit we won't go below so we won't go below 30   state of charge when we're exporting to the grid  and that's been really important to build trust   and confidence with customers that we won't take  all of their battery and now we've got some other   technology here we've got the wallbox quasar  outside the g100 export limiting device which   we tested here prototyped here you mentioned  the quasar so that relies on that the nissan   leaf wasn't it and that's feeding dc back out of  the car and you have to have a bit of a special   charger there which is the query where the  power electronics are converting back from dc   back to ac as well and obviously people will say  well that's a bit specialist chademo's a sort of   it was an early adopters technology is there  plans for it to become more mainstream chademo   the combination of the charger the actual shape  of the charger gun itself it goes in the car and   the communications software that goes between the  car and the charger it was developed in japan they   started to put more investment into technologies  which would give grid resilience at a really   like house to house level and actually we're just  starting to think about that now in this country   um and chademo was part of that thinking what if  i've got an electric car parked at my home how do   i get a bit of energy out of that car to power the  house if maybe the grid around is struggling it's   exactly what we're doing now so chademo really  important in this whole vehicle-to-grid story   that protocol unfortunately is the betamax the  electro-vehicle world and it really is you know   it's been they've been at it for like eight years  now but actually ccs is going to be the charger   like standard of the future and it's going to work  to do vehicle to grid with a software standard   called iso 15118 it means that it's going to  be the ccs charger which is the type 2 charger   pretty standard it has two other pins below two  dc pins and that together is called ccs at that   that combined charging standard and uh the the  fifteenth nominate i mentioned that international   standard it's just been released about two months  ago and that's the agreed like way messaging   between the car charger and maybe other bits of  the energy system but what that's going to mean   is that cars coming onto the market in the next  6 12 18 months are going to be equipped to do v2g   and then the point you made about the charges  such a such an important one right now with   chademo the inversion between ac and dc needs to  happen off the car it doesn't have that on board   and that's why the the wall box quasar is needed  its bidirectional charger has an inverter in there   uses silicon carbide as that kind of switching  technology the quasar itself is not massive really   for what's happening in there but it is quite an  expensive bit of kit because that's all happening   in a charge that's hanging off the side of your  house what we'll see going forward the inverter   will be on the battery itself in the vehicle and  as part of that vehicle's manufacture which means   that uh you know a component that's gonna cost  who knows four or five hundred pounds maybe on the   vehicle that inversion happens on the car charger  on the side of your house can be an ac charger and   it needs to be able to take electricity moving  in both directions way simpler than the charger   that you've seen here today the wallbox quasar  and hopefully that means it's going to be a lot   cheaper maybe parity with what we pay for charges  right now all these ac charges they're not really   charges just the connection point i know for the  charger that's built in the car and the power   electronics conversion actually happens in there  we're already seeing it in solar where you get   combined inverter and battery chargers it's almost  similar technology that's in the car and it's   interesting the manufacturers are already starting  to think in that direction we've seen some cars   with vehicle to load and it allows you to to power  things in your house you think the manufacturers   are on board with this or is that that's almost a  pun yeah for the onboard charger i love it gordon   no you're right i think you know we're seeing um  hyundai is a really good example so the hyundai   ioniq 5 has got vehicle to load means it has three  ping plug sockets in the car itself and it has an   adapter that goes into that type 2 charging socket  and comes out with a three pin so you can anything   that you can plug in a three-pin socket that car  can power right now all the conversations that   we have with vehicle manufacturers is trying to  understand not necessarily even are you gonna do   it now we're getting beyond that it's when when  will you bring the vehicles with the inverters   on board the bi-directional reversion happening on  the battery and when will you deploy that software   that will allow us to talk to the vehicle  so from our perspective at octopus we   have built this service which is ready right  now and we have like the whole experience and   we've trialled that with our customers on  this this power loop vehicle-to-grid trial   so now it's a case of the cars coming and i'm  really excited to see them come you know hyundai   kia genesis that family of vehicles with porsche  i mean appreciate you know love to have a porsche   jlr vw all these brands now talking about they're  going to bring this technology really soon yeah i   mean because i've looked people obviously try  to sell home battery systems you do a little   bit of a cost comparison between stacking up 50 60  kilowatts of home battery and in nearly the price   of a car or in some cases you're more than the  price of a car so it's a batteries there with free   seats receipts and radio and in-car entertainment  and everything yeah you're right some people   it just won't work for example i'm sure a lot  of your audience that they're out about all day   using their vans using their cars so so they're  not going to be parked up at home the whole time   so they may be you know they're thinking well this  isn't going to work for me but actually even that   overnight piece even making those big batteries  available to store overnight is going to be   valuable for those people again we're bringing it  as part of a really cheap tariff and shifting the   stuff that you do in your home that you can to the  night time so it's back to that economy 7 thinking   for a lot of people their car is parked up a lot  of the time and they absolutely will be able to   use their vehicles in this way and like you say  those cars have got big batteries we said earlier   you know you're not using that battery for driving  about mostly why would you spend all that money   on a static home battery system when you can  have a car and it's a battery wheels yeah and   then what are people i mean obviously people  are going to sell cars and ranges but that   other thing people worry about is degradation on  batteries and i've been driving ev for four years   i've probably experienced 10 percent degradation  over four years from and the amount of energy   i've had to use for four years worth of driving is  enormous compared to the house is that something   that people say well the car manufacturers are  going to worry that you're going to degrade the   battery by sucking power out of it every time  that battery cycles it's doing some work and so   if you think about it like when you use an engine  it degrades it's going to need maintenance it's   causing some kind of damage to the engine itself  the great thing about batteries and this battery   chemistries that battery actually likes to work  within a range it likes to work within sort of 20   to 80 and it's like an s-curve it doesn't like to  be drained right down to the bottom and it doesn't   like to be forced to charge right up to the top it  likes to be in that you know that nice bit of the   s-curve and what we're starting to see from these  trials and from uh from some like universities   research is actually vehicle to grid is a much  more gentle way of using a battery than actually   driving it ironically and so we're starting to see  evidence that these batteries are actually being   improved by vehicle to grid it kind of conditions  the battery by keeping it in that range so uh so   i'm not expecting to see you know multiples  of improvement of battery life but certainly   no no bad effects better to flex the battery on  a regular basis rather than just leaving it sat   on the drive for days um yeah the f-150 lightning  ford are actually looking at how you use that to   power a home in some of those places in the  u.s where again the grid is not as reliable   so texas is a good example and of course you know  what's more texan than having your massive truck   carrying lumber yeah yeah loads of lumber and  uh and those trucks are gonna you're gonna power   those homes for maybe you know two or three  days and your house was also another first   when we start thinking about solar because dno  is worried about that everyone's going to be   sending loads of power back onto the grid in a  little bit of a catch-up mode when it comes to   that can you explain a bit about the the g100 that  we have to do the g's the t levels the dnos these   distribution network operators they're the ones  that are uh you know they manage their cables from   like where the energy is like stepping down  from the national grid all the way down to   your property or you know your home historically  they've they've been maintaining that slowly   expanding it where it's necessary and protecting  it so making sure that energy keeps flowing and so   one of the things they're really worried about is  having too much energy going onto the grid at any   one point that those cables are just not able to  cope with when we started our project we started   putting in requests to put more energy on you  use something called a g99 sounds pretty dry it's   pretty dry and basically the g99 application is an  application which says i would like to export more   than 3.68 kilowatts and actually that application  goes all the way up so it's the same application   as you know building some new like solar farm or  power station as it is for domestic application   above 3.68 and actually below that is g98 so  again some of your viewers might be doing solar   installations the g98 says if you're connecting  3.68 kilowatt or less then you can notify us   after you've connected because it's low enough  that we can cope with that we're not too worried   above that they want you to notify them before  you connect g99 gives you that so that was a   big learning on the trial we work with uk pm  they were one of our project partners and we   worked with them to make that a lot easier for  installers and make the journey a lot smoother it   still requires someone at uk pn or any of the dns  to actually go through your application and check   okay what's the equipment you want to like export  using and what's happening in your local area   how much you know can their local literary grid  network cope with in terms of export and the g99   gives you an answer back it's either yeah you can  connect that and that's fine no other requirement   yes you can connect but we're going to give you a  limit we're going to ask you to limit the amount   of export because your local area is already quite  constrained maybe or like your neighbors might   have a lot of solar already you might already have  solar um or or the third one might be actually   that like we just can't do it in your area that  actually there's too much there's too much you   know already happening here and if you want to pay  you can pay to upgrade the grid near you which is   pretty harsh if you're an early adopter because  you're going to pick up the bill potentially for   you and all your neighbours to have the grid  upgraded and most people will say well no thanks   because it's a big bill in fact you know we had  some customers that were 10 12 15 000 pounds which   is a huge amount of money we even had one that was  a hundred thousand pounds because they'd have to   have a whole road up that's just not realistic  for most people but for the customers who   uh so for those customers i should say you know  the dns are looking at this slowly but surely be   patient they're coming um thinking about how you  help customers so that it isn't one person having   to pay because this is not really fair so g100 is  about limiting the export and it's a requirement   to basically yeah protect the grid by dropping  some of that export down and so what we wanted   to prove was that it is possible in a domestic  setting to reduce the amount of export that we   keep below a limit and that we could apply that to  lots of different homes who might have different   amounts of solar plus vitage so what we did was  work with a specialist partner g99 consultants to   actually design a unit which fits somewhere near  your distribution board which takes the input   from the vtg so literally taking those inputs  from the vtg charger coming back through your   home and putting this device before your smart  meter so it's all happening in the home itself   and and comparing that to the solar coming in  as well and then setting each of those units so   that they had the right level to meet what the  dna had allowed for that property and so what   we showed is that for those few occasions when it  is sunny enough for their solar to be generating   enough and the vgg was also exporting and the home  wasn't using enough energy so we hit the limit   that device turned off the solar inverter to make  sure that we always stay below that export limit   yeah and there's going to be a change i think  for the dno as well and i think they're going   to even transition to being digital distribution  service operators yeah and they're kind of because   from the ones i've talked to they're kind of quite  reluctant to do major upgrades to support the ev   rollout and yet you're offering them a kind of way  out of it in terms of getting energy back in so   they can possibly mitigate some of those upgrades  but the minute they're not very it's either an on   or off isn't it it's either you can go to 10  kilowatts or 8 kilowatts if you go above that   you can't but they're not really reflecting  the real-time demand in the area at the moment   it's very it's a really good observation yeah  fixed very fixed i think you're right um yeah   the so the dnas are on their own journey to  becoming these service uh service providers   and thinking more about customers i think that's  the thing that we've experienced on our project   and working with ukpn and actually working  with the ena the energy network association   who bring all of those dnos together actually  explaining it from the customer's perspective   has been really powerful to help them understand  what they need to do what they need to improve so   on the project we uh for example work with uk pn  to explain you know installers are going to come   in number right you're going to be asking for  the g99 connections for v2g for battery bigger   solar they're going to be getting more and more  of these requests and actually they've rolled   out something called smart connect a much nicer  experience on a website we can go on put your   application in it's much more straightforward so  we want to see more of that completed the project   what's the what's the feedback been by the  other participants is it something they're all   delighted and ready for the future or is it has  it been a challenging world for them to live in   well i think a bit of both to be honest um it's  an innovation trial and as we were looking for   for people to join our trial we were really  honest about saying this is innovation it's   gonna be messy it might always work but we will  work closely with you to help you and support you   through this project and make sure that you know  your car is charged and you know we look after you   all the way through so uh we're we're soon going  to release some of our reports actually so we're   going to release a report we did with the energy  savings trust who are one of our project partners   talking about what it felt like to be a customer  on the trial so that's coming really soon   so keep an eye out for that and actually you know  the overwhelming feedback is yes there were bumpy   moments but we really like doing v2g now what  we really know is the pros humour yeah so yeah   the producer and consumer there's a tiny bit in  the wiring regulations that hints to the future   but you've already delivered the future we've  seen it here everything's still here everything   seems to work normally i'm sure the efix viewers  are going to look forward to seeing more of this   uh if you're watching this you got to this  stage check out this video here we went a   little bit further on the g100 g98 g99  with the guy who's delivered the project

2022-08-09

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