Nissan has announced that it will launch a number of electric car models featuring on-board bi-directional charging in the UK from 2026.
The technology, known as Vehicle to Grid or V2G, allows unused power stored in the car battery to be ‘put back’ and used to power homes or sold to the National Grid.
A number of car manufacturers have been developing V2G technology, but Nissan says that it is the first to be granted the G99 grid code certification required to supply electricity into the UK national energy supply.
The certification follows a successful year-long pilot programme carried out at the University of Nottingham.
The company has conducted about 40 pilot projects around the world over the course of the past decade.
One project in the US saw power stored in Nissan LEAF vehicles being transferred to help power the company’s North American facilities in Franklin, Tennessee and its design centre in San Diego.
Nissan said that it intends to introduce the technology to electric vehicles (EVs) in other European markets following the UK rollout.
David Moss, Nissan’s senior vice president for research and development, explained that the normal charging process involves the car managing the conversion of AC from the regular power supply to DC for the car’s battery.
Power can be put back in the grid when it is needed
The bi-directional technology essentially reverses that process, allowing you to channel the stored power back into the grid.
This can be calculated so that the grid requests power from the vehicle at peak times to reduce strain on the national power supply.
The power can be returned at less busy times, when demand for electricity is lower and therefore cheaper.
Nissan said that widespread use of the technology could help to integrate renewables more fully into national power supplies, as energy generated by wind, solar or other means could effectively be stored in EVs, to be released into the grid when needed.
The company claimed that using its on-board bi-directional V2G technology could save the annual cost of powering an EV by up to 50%.
It could also reduce net CO2 emissions from charging the EV by nearly a third for the average household.
Nissan said that the launch is a key step towards realising its vision of creating a sustainable energy ecosystem.
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