Batteries on wheels: electric vehicles could charge your home

With electric vehicle (EV) sales on the rise, there are concerns the energy needed to charge them could overwhelm electricity grids at peak times. 

A pilot project using EV batteries might just be the solution to powering our homes.  

Charging a car at home is currently a one way process. But what if your car could give power back to the grid when you didn't need it.

This would allow cars to be charged at night when costs are low, then use the vehicle battery to power appliances at home during the day or even sell energy back to the grid at higher rates.

These bi-directional chargers are now standard on some models.

China's BYD is a relative newcomer to the UK market but globally it is has overtaken Tesla as the largest EV manufacturer.

All the models at its Stockport showroom have two way chargers, though only the top ranges come with the necessary reverse cable. So far it is being marketed as a useful camping accessory.

Andreas Stavrou is head of BYD sales at LHS showroom in Stockport, just outside of Manchester.

"This car has a vehicle to load cable cable which comes with our BYDs and that will power the energy through to a cool box, if you decide to go camping, and even a speaker."

Kraken, the software division of the energy giant, Octopus Energy, has teamed up with BYD and others looking at how best to utilise these two way chargers.

The work is centred at the company's new research and development green energy "superhub" based at Manchester University.

"An EV car could power a house for up to three to five days. Imagine when there isn't wind or sun, we would have charged those batteries on the EVs to let the home run on them," Devrim Celal, CEO Kraken Flex, said.

In early August Kraken invited its software engineers from around the world to see the new facility and compare notes on progress.

Most of the technology for powering homes is already available, but it's going to take several years before there are enough electric cars on the road to make a significant impact.

There are around 35 million cars on the road in the UK,  just a million of them are all electric.  Projections say this could grow to 10 million by 2035 and 30 million by 2050. 

Change within the decade

The prospect of powering home appliances when needed could become widespread by the mid 2030s, going some way to easing the burden at peak times.

But selling energy back to the grid could take longer.

"The technology is there we just need to make it saleable and more economical," Kraken's Devrim Celal said. "If you look at solar, solar went from $100 plus per megawatt hour (mwh) to just $30 per mwh. With vehicle to grid technologies, a few years ago it would have cost £5,000 ($6,400) to get a charger for it, we need to get the costs down.”

Software is another key development area when using EV cars to power the home or grid. The aim is to allow motorists to tell the system how much power to give back, for example 30 per cent to the home, leaving 70 per cent in the car battery for transport use. 

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