Denbighshire County Council has become one of the first organisations to have an innovative vehicle to grid (V2G) electric vehicle (EV) charger installed in its fleet depot using AC rather than DC current.
Vehicle to grid charging offers the potential for EV owners and fleets to reduce energy costs as well as to improve the resilience of the UK’s electricity system 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 at many 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 one of the UK’s leading independent engineering companies in the electric vehicle supply equipment space, specialising in EV chargepoint management solutions and the manufacture of reliable charging points, particularly targeted at critical fleets. Hangar19 has developed the first multi-socket AC bi-directional charger on the market.
The vehicle to grid charging on the V2VNY trial is being simulated and optimised by AI technology from CrowdCharge, a company that has been running V2G in homes for over three years with effective results.
Denbighshire County Council's Fleet Services Centre has more than 400 vehicles, more than 100 of which are EVs, including electric cars, vans, 16-seat minibuses, refuse collection trucks, and specialist off-road vehicles capable of operating in the local authority’s large expanse of countryside. The depot generates its own electricity from solar panels linked to a battery storage system as part of a smart local energy system.
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.”
Denbighshire County Council is using a Kia EV6 electric car with vehicle to load (V2L) capability for the V2VNY V2G trial. The council said it, like the other EVs on the fleet, has resulted in huge savings in running costs compared to diesel vehicles. It has even used its V2L function to charge other EVs.
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.”
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.
The V2VNY Phase 2 project, part of the V2X Innovation Programme, is funded by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), delivered by Innovate UK.
