V2G / V2H plans

Hi all, apologies if this has been asked before.

I now have a car that will (at some point) be enabled for V2G / V2H. This would be useful for me as I have an ASHP, so having extra capacity in the car allows me to deal with longer outages, especially in colder months. Thinking speculatively, I’m considering what the setup might look like, currently it looks like I’d need to fit a second charger on the grid side of the AIO gateway.

Anyone know if there any plans for V2G / V2H perhaps as a charger and gateway upgrade for existing AIO customers?

Patrick think this is quite some years away yet. Will take government approval so how long is your string

Yeah, I think the industry is in the "developers and governments argue endlessly about standardisation" phase of innovation. Though tbh, I'd rather they took the time to do it right than rushed it. I think we're a few years away yet.

I looked into it when trying to work out whether Octopus EV salary sacrifice scheme would work for me and my company. So far, all the incentives don't cancel out enough of the new car (depreciation) premium to get me away from our diesel Galaxy, but bidirectional charging would favourably and significantly change the economics.

Fair points.

I guess I’m seeing some more movement in the space driven by the car industry (gettit?) and I do/can pay the “early adopter” premium - my investment case/payback doesn’t quite stack up, but that’s ok.

I do agree there is ambiguity in how it’s implemented in government and with the grid infrastructure, I fully expect that it can’t be a free-for-all but highly managed by the energy company as a way to balance grid demand and its limitations, and also managed by the car maker as to manage the battery warranty. We can’t base financial return calculations on today’s export tariffs, nor the full capacity of the car battery.

But I do plan to be ready for it, if and when it arrives

Patrick Yeah, definitely up for it in principle, but a lot of uncertainty, and a frustrating delay between a few apparently successful pilots and any suitable chargers becoming available.

In terms of vehicles, we need something with 6/7 proper full size seats, which is the current pinch point - just very little on the market that night be suitable except the ID Buzz (which I quite like, but the efficiency/range isn't wonderful, and it's by no means cheap, even with all the Octopus EV scheme benefits). Other than that it's a bunch of SUVs which tend to be either too cramped and/or too expensive, and a set of uninspiring electric-retrofit van conversions with too-small batteries. I'll be watching the Kia PV5 announcements with interest - if the price and specs are reasonable, that might be enough to make the jump for.

Another point of uncertainty with the Buzz is that even though it has V2G capability, I've seen rumours of a fixed lifetime limit (of a few thousand kWh, off the top of my head) which, if accurate, would put a big dampener on the whole enterprise. Conversely, others have suggested that the relatively gentle charging/discharging of a house load compared to usual driving use can actually be a benefit in terms of battery conditioning...