The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has committed $4 million to a project that will deploy up to 130 electric vehicles and bidirectional chargers across the ACT Government fleet, testing how vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology can support the electricity grid while reducing fleet operating costs.
Testing V2G at commercial scale
The project, Realising Electric Vehicle-to-Grid Services 2 (REVS2), will be delivered by charging infrastructure provider JET Charge and builds on Australia’s first V2G trial, funded by ARENA in 2020.
While the original project demonstrated that electric vehicles could safely export electricity back to the grid, REVS2 will examine how the technology performs in the everyday operations of a large commercial fleet.
ARENA CEO Darren Miller said the project would help address a key challenge for bidirectional charging in Australia: establishing how fleets can be incentivised to support the electricity grid without compromising their transport requirements.
“Electric vehicles have the potential to do much more than just move people and goods from A to B. They can also help support Australia’s electricity system by storing renewable energy and supplying it back to the grid when demand is high,” Miller said.
Building a business case for fleets
The project will investigate how fleet operators can be rewarded for making their vehicles’ stored energy available to the grid, potentially creating an additional financial benefit from electrification.
JET Charge CEO Tim Washington said the next step was to demonstrate the commercial viability of the technology.
“We know vehicle-to-grid technology works – we helped show that in the original REVS project,” Washington said.
“Now we need to prove it makes commercial sense. If we can help fleets reduce their operating costs by supporting the grid, that’s a business case any CEO can get behind.”
ACT Government builds on earlier trials
ACT Minister for Climate Change, Environment, Energy and Water Suzanne Orr said the project would build on earlier trials involving government fleet vehicles, including an event in February 2024 when vehicles successfully supplied power back to the grid during an outage.
The ACT Government is also supporting community awareness of smart charging and V2G technology. According to Orr, more than 40 per cent of new vehicle registrations in the ACT so far this financial year have been battery electric vehicles.
Improving charging interoperability
The announcement coincided with Australia’s first Open Charge Alliance Plugfest in Canberra, which brought together industry participants to test interoperability.
Supported by the ARENA-funded Vehicle-Grid Network project, the event aims to strengthen interoperability, cybersecurity capability and industry readiness for bidirectional and conventional charging.
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