Mobility of the future
Bidirectional charging project: “We’re sending a strong signal to car manufacturers”
25.06.2024
Mobility has carried out its largest practical test of bidirectional electric cars to date and has come to the conclusion: The technology works and could be operated economically. The popular vote in favour of the Electricity Act also improves the framework conditions in Switzerland. But if electric cars are to be able to stabilize the power grid on a large scale in the future, an additional effort will be needed from politicians, car manufacturers and grid operators.
The era of bidirectional electric cars is just around the door, but it will take a few more years for the technology to be widely applied. This is the much simplified insight from Mobility’s V2X Suisse pilot project. The car sharing company has operated and tested 50 bidirectional electric cars as part of its fleet over the course of one and a half years – together with six partners and the support of the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (see box). The cars not only used electricity, but also returned it to the grid if necessary. Expectations of this technology are high, as electric cars could help stabilise the electricity grid in the future. This is because a few thousand bidirectional cars can provide the same power as a pumped-storage power plant.
Car sharing is the most complex case
With the end of the project, those responsible are now drawing a positive conclusion. Firstly, the system worked technically and secondly, it was possible to prove that the cars could deliver electricity in seconds when the corresponding signal came from the grid operator. The V2X project has shown for the first time that it is possible to combine many e-cars into a virtual storage system and control the flow of energy in real time. With its vehicles and infrastructure, Mobility provided the perfect environment for this test. “This allowed us to investigate what is probably the most complex use case – with cars that are placed by different electricity providers throughout Switzerland and that have to be available for shared journeys at all times,” says Pascal Barth, electrical engineer at Mobility. This shows: “If bidirectional charging is possible in the case of car sharing, it should be feasible everywhere.”
Prices have to fall in order to operate economically
In addition to the technical feasibility, the project also investigated whether a bidirectional car fleet could make money. The short answer: Not (yet). First, the economic conditions for network-serving services must become more attractive. V2X Suisse has discovered that charging and unloading at the right time can already generate revenue – up to CHF 600 per vehicle and year. However, this was far from covering the costs in the test phase. This is partly due to the very high prices for bidirectional charging stations. In addition, the choice of bidirectional electric cars is still minuscule and there is a lack of interoperable standards. The latter means that nowadays, managing a fleet requires special solutions that are not compatible with different car brands or charging stations.
“The offer of bidirectional charging cars has developed less quickly than hoped,” says V2X project manager and industry expert Marco Piffaretti. Nevertheless, he is optimistic: “V2X Suisse has triggered a lot of positive reactions and has given bidirectional technology a boost. We are sending a strong signal to car manufacturers to bring more and cheaper of these vehicles to the market.”
Elimination of double grid fee from 2025
After all, the framework conditions will improve significantly from 2025 onwards, as the Swiss electorate will vote on the 9th June the Electricity Act. This makes it possible, for example, to reimburse twice the grid fees that have hitherto made it financially unattractive to feed electricity back into the grid. In addition, the Act lays the foundations for a flexibility market for local distribution system operators. The relevant ordinances are now being drawn up by the Federal Administration.
Mobility focuses on intelligent charging
In a few years’ time, it will be possible to operate a decentralised electric car fleet in a way that benefits the grid and, above all, economically. Until then, Mobility is pausing bidirectional charging and focusing on the ongoing electrification of its fleet. The company has already switched 600 of the 3,000 or so shared cars to electric power – including charging stations – and is continuing to drive change. “The V2X Suisse project was a great opportunity for us to learn a lot about developments and technologies in electromobility and the energy markets,” says Mobility CEO Roland Lötscher. “We will use the findings to charge our electric fleet more intelligently in the future. This will not only have a positive financial impact, but will also improve the service life of car batteries.” It is entirely conceivable that Mobility will resume bidirectional charging in the future. “V2X Suisse has impressively demonstrated the potential of this technology for Switzerland and fleet operators.”
ABOUT V2X
“V2X Suisse” is backed by seven companies, with Mobility taking the lead on the project. In addition: Automobile manufacturers (Honda), software developer (sun2wheel), Charging station developer (EVTEC), aggregators (tiko), scientific monitoring (novatlantis, in collaboration with the ETH Zurich). The project will be supported by the pilot and demonstration programme of the Swiss Federal Office of Energy SFOE support. The final report will be publicly available from late summer on the Federal Government’s ARAMIS database: aramis.admin.ch
You can find more information here.