Denbighshire County Council has become one of the first organisations to install a vehicle to grid (V2G) electric vehicle (EV) charger at its fleet depot using AC rather than DC current.
V2G charging offers the potential for EV owners and fleets to reduce energy costs by allowing an EV to take power from the grid, and also to send power back.
The V2VNY (Vehicle 2 Volume eNergy Yield) project is trialling lower cost V2G chargers using AC (alternating current) rather than DC (direct current), which are more suitable for charging at home and workplaces.
The V2VNY project is being led by Hangar19, in partnership with CrowdCharge and DriveElectric. Other project partners are Electric Corby, Oxfordshire County Council, Grid Beyond and JLR. JLR is providing prototype electric vehicles for use in the trial.
Hangar19 is an independent engineering companies in the EV supply equipment space, specialising in chargepoint management solutions and the manufacture of charging points. It developed one of the first multi-socket AC bi-directional chargers on the market. The V2G charging on the trial is being simulated and optimised by AI technology from CrowdCharge, which has run V2G in homes for more than three years.
Denbighshire County Council’s Fleet Services Centre has more than 400 vehicles, over 100 of which are EVs, including electric cars, vans, 16-seat minibuses, refuse collection trucks, and specialist off-road vehicles. The depot generates its own electricity from solar panels linked to a battery storage system as part of a smart local energy system.
The local authority’s involvement in the V2VNY V2G trial has already attracted interest from other local authorities and the Welsh government. The project has also installed V2G chargepoints for other councils including East Lothian, Islington, Oxfordshire and Wiltshire.
The trial aims to demonstrate a commercially viable way for fleet owners, businesses and EV drivers to save money and carbon, and for the UK to reduce the load on the electricity grid at peak times.
Martin Griffiths, Fleet Mobility Lead Officer, Denbighshire County Council, said:
“Vehicle to grid charging, combined with a fleet of EVs, solar generation and battery storage, offers us the potential to reduce reliance on the grid even further, providing greater resilience if there was a problem with the UK’s electricity network. V2G is also expected to deliver savings on energy costs, as well as reducing carbon emissions.”
Cllr Barry Mellor, Lead Member for Environment and Transport, Denbighshire County Council, said:
“As a Council, we are working extremely hard to address the climate and nature emergency we declared in 2019. A vital part of this is reducing our own carbon footprint, with a big focus on the Council fleet.
“We fully welcome the opportunity to have such an innovative system installed at our fleet depot and look forward to seeing its impact on conserving energy use at the site.”
Image of Martin Griffiths, Fleet Mobility Lead Officer, Highways, Facilities and Environmental Services, Denbighshire County Council, with the V2VNY vehicle to grid (V2G) AC charger.
The news comes as Transport + Energy launches its inaugural Fleet Electrification Forum on 9 July at Warwick Conferences. Find out more about the event and speakers here.
