Western Australia’s (WAs) state-owned regional energy provider Horizon Power has completed a 12-month trial testing vehicle-to-grid (V2G), two-way charging of electric vehicles (Evs) in Exmouth, 1,252 kilometres north of Perth.
It was the first trial of its kind in WA as part of the state goverment’s Electric Vehicle Action Plan (EVAP), and demonstrated V2G technology can successfully manage the two-way flow of energy, acting as a distributed energy resource (DER) to balance the grid, incorporate renewables, and provide mobile storage, especially in regional and remote towns.
WA Energy and Decarbonisation Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson said the trial is an important milestone in the state’s clean energy transition and in testing the technology that could make two-way charging a possibility in WA.
“The findings confirmed for Horizon Power that its technology can manage EV charging and discharging intelligently, helping it to keep the grid stable while paving the way for flexible, customer-led energy products,” Sanderson said.
“The success of this trial sets a strong foundation for EVs to be integrated into our power systems.”
Sanderson added that as well as helping to stabilise the grid EVs have the capacity to power homes and reduce energy bills.
Image: Horizon Power
DERMS
Using Horizon Power’s distributed energy resource management system (DERMS), partner organisations the Gascoyne Development Commission, Shire of Exmouth, Exmouth Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and WA Country Health Service, installed the V2G DERMS connected chargers, and used five Nissan Leaf EVs for the trial, that had a range of up to 400 kilometres.
DERMS used data from Horizon Power’s power systems, connected solar, the EVs and weather forecasts (predicting the availability of solar energy), to balance power system stability with customer needs.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.