EV Connect, a California-based software-as-a-service company, says it is collaborating with the Indiana-based Battery Innovation Center (BIC) and Energy Systems Network (ESN) to deploy Indiana’s first large-scale vehicle-to-grid (V2G) capable charging system to support school bus fleets, heavy-duty trucks and other customer segment applications.
EV Connect provides its electric vehicle (EV) charging management solution and 500 kW bi-directional bus-scale superchargers from Rhombus. The extended test case aims to generate rich data on overall battery life, the number of available cycles and an understanding of discharge rates to assist companies in the EV ecosystem in determining how V2G will impact their products and systems.
“This project is designed to deliver previously unavailable data and lessons about a technology that will quickly move into the mainstream – the partnership with EV Connect is critical to generating real-world data,” says Tim O’Hara, managing director of ESN. “Testing communications protocols, battery conditions and uncovering the inevitable unknowns is vital for the many industry stakeholders involved in the future of V2G.”
Bi-directional vehicle charging technology has been validated and holds promise for wholesale energy markets as the prospects around vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-load (V2L), such as campsites and construction sites, vehicle-to-home (V2H), among others, grow. The technology, however, has not been widely deployed due to a lack of integration into wholesale energy markets, the lack of real-world data about battery performance over time and support from EV manufacturers.
The project aims to illuminate the challenges and opportunities of V2G technology and showcase impacts on operating characteristics and opportunities for the grid and business models around EV battery control. The data collected in the program will guide midwest utilities and the BIC in developing forward-thinking programs and policies for grid-interactive EV battery programs, from monetization to the integration of EV batteries as part of the distributed energy resources (DER) mix.
For more information about EV Connect’s advanced EV charging platform, click here.
