Image courtesy Elli
Volkswagen Group’s e-mobility subsidiary Elli has announced a pilot project for bidirectional charging in private households in Germany.
Volkswagen Group’s customers and solar panel provider OTOVO’s customers can apply for Elli’s pilot initiative, which will launch in Germany in December 2025. As part of the project, Elli will provide selected participants with a DC bidirectional charger.
A key component of the pilot project, which was presented at IAA Mobility 2025, is a legally compliant 11kW wallbox that connects the home solar system and the EV via a modular software platform developed by Elli.
The bidirectional charger, developed in cooperation with Elli’s partner CUBOS – a provider of sustainable energy solutions – enables the EV battery to be used as a home energy storage unit and powers households with self-generated solar energy. Energy from the grid, the vehicle, and the home are managed via the Elli Charging app.
With smart bidirectional home charging, says Elli, customers can significantly reduce their charging costs, including procurement costs, fees, charges, and levies, calculated based on the reference year 2022, under certain conditions. In some cases, this will be by up to 75%.
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At the same time, independence from the electricity grid can be achieved to a comparable extent, says Elli, through the use of self-generated solar power combined with bidirectional charging.
Commenting in a release was Giovanni Palazzo, CEO of Elli: “With our pilot project at IAA Mobility 2025, we’re opening a new chapter in the history of electric mobility.
“Bidirectional charging is the enabler of energy self-sufficiency at home, and with the initial rollout of our Managed Battery Network, we are elevating vehicle batteries and storage systems to the level of critical energy resources. In doing so, we’re bridging the gap between mobility and energy.”
Volkswagen Group EVs built on the MEB platform – including select Volkswagen Passenger Cars, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, and CUPRA models with software version ID. Software 3.5 or higher and 77 kWh batteries – are already technically capable of enabling DC bidirectional charging.
Elli entering virtual energy trading
The bidirectional ecosystem is connected to Elli’s Managed Battery Network (MBN), a virtual power plant (VPP).
This smart energy system optimises the use of renewable energy by storing electricity at specific times of the day and making it available later through wholesale energy trading.
By the end of the decade, Elli aims to integrate large-scale storage systems and hundreds of thousands of EV batteries across Europe into its MBN, orchestrating the integration and monetisation of storage capacities through its own energy trading platform.
In the first step, beginning in 2026, several hundred decentralised EVs will be connected to the VPP for the first time. Subsequently, Elli will market these flexibilities via its own trading operations on the EPEX intraday power exchange.
In parallel, Elli is launching its large-scale energy storage business. The new Elli PowerCenter will be completed in Salzgitter in December.
The facility, with a capacity of 20MW and 40MWh, uses LFP battery packs from PowerCo and will serve as a platform for energy trading and future grid services.
The initiative is the latest from Volkswagen to test and develop bidirectional charging in Europe.
To analyse the regional scalability of bidirectional charging on a European level, the Volkswagen Group is conducting several innovation projects, including one led by Volkswagen in Sweden.
The testing campus, set up in 2021 in collaboration with the Stenberg housing cooperative, is designed to show and evaluate the technical energy functionalities and CO₂ impact of vehicle-to-home (V2H) and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) charging.
