Electric vehicles could be grid’s flexible friend

EVs don’t come cheap but their value can be optimised when connected to the grid. Vic Wyman finds out what is standing in the way of turning cars into batteries.

When Kristian Ruby’s wife decided that they should get a car after not having had one for a decade, they did what more and more people have been doing — they bought an electric vehicle (EV), from a European manufacturer.

As the secretary general of the Eurelectric association representing more than 3500 European power generation, distribution and supply utilities, Ruby might have been inclined to avoid fossil-fuelled cars. Yet he may also have read a new report by Eurelectric and the consultancy EY, which claimed that EVs fitted with bidirectional chargers (V2G in the jargon) could become money-savers, by charging EV batteries when power is cheap and selling energy back into the grid when the EVs are parked, or using it in owners’ homes.

V2G chargers and vehicles that can use them are rare. But much-cheaper VIG smart chargers, which pump juice into EVs based on factors such as the time of day, when the EVs are needed and the variable cost of electricity available from grids, could cut motoring costs and make EVs more affordable, according to Eurelectric/EY.

Ruby accepted that in the EU electric cars are not cheap, compared with petrol and diesel options: “We need to make it more affordable to own an electric car.”

Success at that could be a boon for Eurelectric members. For, the growth of distributed renewables and increased electricity usage to tackle climate change threatens a mismatch between electricity supply and demand, the overloading of transmission and distribution lines and more difficult grid integration.

Smart and bidirectional charging could provide valuable flexibility by adjusting energy supply, demand and storage in real time to balance the grid, reduce peak loads and the investments needed to reinforce grids.

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Costly balancing act

Eurelectric/EY cited an EU Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) report that the need for congestion management jumped 14.5% in 2023, driving up system costs, with the EU congestion management cost an estimated €4 billion. The German system bore 60% of the cost.

Europe’s flexibility resources will have to more than double within five years to keep up with changing electricity supply and demand, said Eurelectric/EY. Compared with 2021, demand for flexibility will increase by up 2.4-fold on a daily basis (from 153TWh), 1.8-fold on a weekly basis (from 137TWh) and 1.3-fold on a seasonal basis (from 132TWh). From 2030 to 2050, flexibility needed to to triple, they said.

Throw in factors such as cyber attacks, extreme weather and the near-capacity of grids and the power sector needs help.

And the cavalry that the electricity sector sees coming over the horizon to help it — is driving EVs.

Taking charge

Most non-work cars are a wasting asset that on average aren’t used for 23 hours a day. School buses are typically used for only four hours each weekday, although commercial vehicles are usually used more intensively, with trucks commonly driven for two or three shifts a day.

All could use smart charging to optimise charging, typically outside peak electricity demand periods, based on time-of-use tariffs. According to Eurelectric/EY: “They might, for instance, want their car charged to 80% overnight at the cheapest rate, or to be fully charged by 8am.” V2G chargers could take into account the price of electricity, grid use, availability of renewable energy and the state of charge of the EV battery.

Bidirectional charging could enable thousands of EVs to work together as a large, distributed energy system, providing flexibility services. EV batteries could in effect store energy from variable-output renewables until it is needed by the grid.

Eurelectric/EY found that, by avoiding curtailment of renewables, EVs could contribute 4% of Europe’s annual power supply by 2030 and the estimated 114TWh of battery capacity could power 30 million homes a year. By 2040, V2G could store more than 10% of Europe’s overall power need for re-injection later, they added.

Last year, Eurelectric estimated that the flexibility from assets such as EVs could save European grid operators €4 billion a year and help to lower their overall annual grid investment costs from an anticipated €67 billion to €55 billion between 2025 and 2050.

Rocky road ahead

However, difficulties abound, including the need for free and fair access to in-vehicle data by third parties, subject to driver consent, and the need for the implementation in the EU of Article 20a of the Renewable Energy Directive (RED III) on data sharing and interoperability, said Eurelectric/EY.

The European Commission’s new automotive sector action plan unveiled on 5 March 2025 promised action on data.

And although the European Alternative Fuels Observatory counted 821,773 public charging points in Europe by the fourth quarter 2024 for 10 million EVs, 30% up on the 2023 figure, few were V2G-enabled.

However, based on the total cost of ownership (TCO), Eurelectric/EY estimated that in the UK the owner of a compact EV with V2G could save up to 19% (€1,270) annually compared with an internal combustion vehicle. For a large or sports utility vehicle, it estimated an annual saving of up to 26% (€2,460). There were estimated savings of up to 14% In Germany, Sweden and Spain for small cars, 8% in France and 9% in the Netherlands.

EV advocates are also targeting cars that are leased, which account for about half of all new cars in Europe, mostly to companies. “Getting leasing companies on board and overcoming fears of battery degradation and violating car warranty conditions, while supporting with V2G education and installation, could secure the numbers needed to take V2G from pilot and into practice,” said Eurelectric/EY.

The European Commission also promised measures to boost EV sales to vehicle fleets and will also encourage EU countries States to adopt social leasing schemes for new and second-hand zero-emission vehicles, targeted at vulnerable transport users, under the EU’s Social Climate Fund.

Max Molliere, e-mobility data analyst at the clean transport and energy organisation T&E, said that vehicle fleets, shipping firms, etc. were his organisation’s EV focus: “We are aware that it is a big challenge at the moment to finance it.”

Sales rising

For the EU to succeed in its aim to become climate neutral by 2050, transport emissions — about a quarter of total EU greenhouse gas emissions — need to be reduced by 90% by that date. That involves a wholesale switch to EVs.

One in five cars sold in the world was electric in 2024, with European battery and plug-in hybrid sales of 3.1 million. There was a six-fold increase from 2019 to 2023 in sales of battery EVs in the EU but the increase fell by 5.6 percent between 2023 and 2024, with market share down from 14.6% to 13.6%.

Although EVs reached 15.0% of vehicle sales in January 2025 compared with 10.9% in January 2024, the European Commission has still relieved manufacturers of the risk of heavy fines for failing to meet the 2025 passenger vehicle emission targets, by weakening the rules and thus the incentives to sell EVs. Firms will now be able to calculate their efforts over three years, according to the Commission’s action plan for the automotive industry unveiled on 5 March 2025.

Eurelectric/EY still expected that public policies would boost EV demand to 50% of vehicle sales in Europe by 2030, two years later than previously projected. By 2050, it projected that there would be about 250 million EVs — about 20 times as many as today. It expected a nearly 60-times increase to seven million in the number of public EV chargers.

Jon-Ivar Nygård, Norway’s transport minister, told Eurelectric’s recent EVision conference on regulation that government incentives, and support for investment in fast charging, were behind EVs being more than 90% of new cars in his country, and making up 28% of all vehicles on the road. “It is essentially the tax benefits,” he said.

Also in Norway, most EVs have attracted no VAT until the recent market maturity or registration tax, have been given access to bus lanes, reduced toll and ferry charges and can be charged more cheaply than using fossil fuels. Government policies are costing NOK50 billion (£3.6 billion) this year.

Originally published on Enlit World.