V2X and V2G: Plotting the e-mobility roadmap

While e-mobility headlines have frequently been making rounds in the news, how far have we really come and what are the next steps on the V2X roadmap? Yusuf Latief spoke to Arjan Wargers, Manager Research & Innovation at ELaadNL to find out.

V2X, V2G and the range of other e-mobility abbreviations have made several much-welcomed rounds as news headlines over the past year as the electric vehicle’s place has become intertwined with that of our power systems.

But how far have we come, and what does the roadmap look like en route to a true ‘vehicle to everything’?

These were some of the questions I pitched to Arjan Wargers of ElaadNL, a research lab opened as an initiative by the joint Dutch grid operators in 2009.

Based in Arnhem, the Netherlands, ElaadNL has been doing critical work on the e-mobility journey, looking into cybersecurity, interoperability and smart charging.

When it comes to V2G and V2X, what have been some of the lab’s most important findings?

V2G is very promising. Initially, we weren’t sure if V2G was going to happen, and whether it was going to be through AC or DC.

Now we see all these car brands very explicitly stating that they will focus on V2G AC – for example, Renault and Kia – and we have come quite far in making the whole V2G chain based on standards.

V2G can be done in the lab, but there are some things which still need to be developed to have V2G be activated through the standardised protocols.

That’s one of the major chunks of work we need to do in the next few years, as well as the integration of V2X in homes and into buildings.

V2X can also have a very large impact.

For example, when there are 20 cars in the street providing smart charging services, five V2X-capable cars can provide the same amount of flexibility as these 20 smart charging-capable cars. This means that V2X has a lot of potential to solve congestion challenges.

However, there is a big ‘but’.

Although V2X and V2G are sexy ideas and very promising for grid management, there is still work to be done.

Arjan Wargers

When you want this car to solve congestion, it needs to be activated accordingly. In the Netherlands, there is no price mechanism or regulation to ask or demand the car to feed to ‘X’ and solve congestion.

For balancing purposes, there are already markets where smart charging can play a role. For this purpose, smart charging and V2X are based on balancing – passive and active balancing.

Smart charging and V2X can also be based on spot market prices.

Especially smart charging: when based on imbalance it can worsen grid congestion.

When V2G is concentrated in an area, it can mean a lot for solving or decreasing congestion. But at the same time, it also has the potential to worsen the situation if V2G is activated based on imbalance, and this does not help the grid but worsens the situation.

Currently, there is no system in place to prevent local congestion when V2G is activated for balancing purposes. So this is a challenge. Although V2X and V2G are sexy ideas and very promising for grid management, there is still work to be done.

Also of interest:
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What are the next e-mobility steps and milestones that we should be on the lookout for?

The most straightforward roadmap is to develop and, more importantly, implement the ISO 15118-20 standard so that it is implemented in the right way, in the same way, by every OEM, EV OEM and EVSE OEM.

Other standards in the ‘V2G chain’, like the latest version of OCPP, should also be implemented to facilitate V2G.

Next to that, information like state of charge and energy need are very important for managed charging and we need to develop an app or settings in the EV to get this information. Making this data open, shareable and cyber secure is also very, very important.

Then there is the realm of vehicleto-home or vehicle-to-building integration, which requires a lot of work on connectivity between different assets and means including the flex possibilities of a V2X-capable vehicle into energy management systems logic and algorithms.

Also on the roadmap is complying with the requirement for generators, which needs an amount and complexity of work that should not be underestimated.

And then, of course, as I mentioned, we need rules to prohibit V2X balancing in the wrong direction. This is very challenging, because the DSO must know when it will increase congestion and where. This calls for system and platform integrations to share this information.

Therefore, there is a need for measurements in the grid and interpretation of these measurements, and to communicate this with the management system which controls V2X.

Measurements on low voltage are not very common. DSOs are working on this in every country in Europe – it is the basic thing we need to get right.

This is what I think the roadmap will look like.

The tech is important. Customers want it. Customers like it. There are a lot of business opportunities as well. So, I see this happening.

But, when I am on the whiteboard and I look at the HEM integration of V2X through the station, or through the telematics route, this will be quite complex.

This complexity is not a problem in itself, but it is a lot of work.

What excites you about the sector and gets you up in the morning?

What gets me up? My kids!

But in all seriousness, I get hugely excited when I think about the European continental electricity grid – it’s a machine!

Maybe that’s a funny way of putting it, but it is; it’s alive, it has frequency, it has voltage. It’s really a system which functions by being continuously balanced between the demand and supply. And that is what intrigues me.

We can almost compare it to historical revolutions in technology and engineering, like when they invented the steam machine and when they invented the computer.

This is the next revolution: electric cars.

They bring together the grid system, the electricity system, the mobility system and solutions providers for ICT and hardware, and all in between, and it is never a dull moment.

And last but not least, it is also a very good thing. It helps to adapt demand to supply and, as such, it helps with making use of more sustainable energy.

And it helps, hopefully, to decrease the heating of the earth. This is a bit far away, but being a part of something bigger, to help cool down the planet, is deep in my objectives.

And it’s funny, because this last part came more to the foreground when my kids were born. Either it’s because I’m getting old or it’s because I want more for my kids – or both – but this is a big motivator.

Originally published on Enlit World.