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V2G technical Query

2205 Views 4 Replies 4 Participants Last post by  ThudnBlundr
Why is the inverter for a V2G so expensive £8000 to £9500 for a 10KW unit per Drive Electric in UK.
DriveElectric launches Vehicle to Grid charging service - DriveElectric



Is there not an inverter in an EV and why is this not available to connect the stored battery to the grid ?

Are there not 2 pin terminals available on the socket connection on an EV (CCS or Chadamo) available to connect the battery to an external inverter (which may be connected to a solar panel at the same voltage) ?
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Is there not an inverter in an EV and why is this not available to connect the stored battery to the grid ?


Nothing that is immediately suitable. If the charger module in the car were designed to be bidirectional (rather than just AC->battery as it is at present), then it would be more expensive. There would also be significant safety complications in making the AC bidirectional, wheras the DC connection is inherently bidirectional.

Are there not 2 pin terminals available on the socket connection on an EV (CCS or Chadamo) available to connect the battery to an external inverter (which may be connected to a solar panel at the same voltage) ?
After suitable communication between the car and the controller in the chargepoint/V2G unit, yes the raw battery voltage appears on terminals of the socket, and you then need an inverter similar but not identical to a solar inverter of the same power to connect it to the grid.

So if you look at the price of a solar inverter, add a substantial extra cost for the CHAdeMO or CCS protocol controller, contactors and connector (the CHAdeMO connectors in particular are not cheap), you get the notional price of one of these units. Add then an allowance for the fact that these are currently only built in low volumes and you get the price you see now (actually, £8k-£9k is a pretty good price as things stand today).

Personally, I'm not at all convinced that full V2G is a good idea. You can get most of the benefit with very much smaller cost by simply managing EV charging speeds/times. In such a scheme, you would input by some mechanism the amount of charge you need and when, and the system would charge at time and rate to suit grid balance - maybe not charging at all some nights when you have enough for your commute the next day, maybe charging more than you need on other nights when there happens to be excess. This also side-steps issues of battery wear, and accounting for losses in the charge/discharge cycle (if you do real V2G, you are getting less out of the battery than you put in and need to account for that in the billing).
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