1000 V2G charge points in GB – Nissan and UK government

Almost 10 million pounds in funding have been earmarked by the British government for the country’s largest vehicle-to-grid project to date. 1,000 V2G charging points will be set up across the UK together with Nissan over the next three years.

Japanese Nissan is what remains of the British car industry in a way and the company has been pushing electric mobility on the Isles for some time. Sunderland builds the little bestseller that has made it into many a public fleet.

This latest project now sees Nissan turning the Leaf into a tiny private power plant. The plan is to install 1,000 vehicle-to-grid charging units across the UK over the next three years. Substantial support comes from the UK government as it wants to demonstrate the viability and also potential attractiveness of V2G solutions.

The project falls back on 9.9 million pounds in funding through the Office for Low Emission Vehicles and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy. V2G provider Nuvve, the National Grid as well as UK Power Networks and Northern Powergrid are on board as well.

It is not the only V2G project funded by the government at Westminster. The Octopus trial is running as well that wants to install more than 130 V2G chargers throughout 2018 (we reported).

This latest and largest project serves as a demonstrator for all parties involved. The National Grid’s business development boss, Claire Spedding, explained to Autocar “Part of the demonstration project will include assessing whether EV owners are incentivised enough financially to provide power back to the grid when required and helping determine if any regulatory or policy interventions are required.”

Nissan has gathered first-hand experience in the UK to this regard as it started a promotion with utility Ovo. Leaf drivers and Ovo clients could reportedly sell energy stored in the EVs back to the grid in times of peak demand for example.

The Japanese are running similar trials back at home as well as in Denmark where Nissan teamed up with Enel. They claim that some customers managed to get pay backs worth a 1,000 euros. That could be incentive enough.
autocar.co.uk, chroniclelive.co.uk