The first North American bidirectional electric vehicle charging station was announced for sale at the Consumer Electronics Show in January this year. 

While Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology is proven in Europe, it is new enough that the full potential has not been realized. Relatively few electric vehicles are capable of bidirectional energy flow (Nissan LEAF, Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV). However, it is planned technology for many automobile manufacturers and this technology will impact utility operators and consumers alike. For the Consumer, the bidirectional charger is a place to store and retrieve energy.  This capacity and flexibility can be used for:

• optimizing net metering,
• reducing demand charges,
• and going off-grid with some local storage.

For the Utility, the bidirectional charger offers:

• Distributed grid ancillary services: spinning reserve, frequency compensation, controllable Q,
• Enhanced ability to compensate for large PV concentrations,
• and some flattening of the daily renewable energy supply curve

With Vermillion Power Technologies’ expertise in grid-forming inverters, grid support functions and cloud based solutions, the integration possibilities are endless.