Vehicle-to-home tech trial

A cutting-edge trial into the broader customer benefits of electric vehicle (EV) technology will be held at Piha in Auckland.

Auckland electricity lines company Vector has been approved for $117,000 co-funding from the Government’s low emission vehicles contestable fund to explore the potential network and customer resiliency benefits of vehicle-to-home (V2H) technology.

The trial will see if EVs and V2H systems can effectively ease peak demand on electricity networks and keep the power on for customers during short-term cuts.

It is also important to understand the impact larger numbers of EVs have on electricity networks – especially as their popularity continues to rise – and how new customer technologies can help, Vector chief networks officer Andre Botha says.

“As more people make the switch to EVs, demand for electricity is likely to increase substantially, especially during peak times,” he says.

“While we can always build more network infrastructure to meet peak demand, this comes at a high cost to consumers – so increasingly lines companies are turning to new technology to more efficiently prepare the network for the future as well as provide consumers with more choice.

“In this trial, we hope to complement existing research that shows V2H systems could help flatten peak demand by creating multi-directional energy flows. This has the potential to supplement energy from centralised sources and reduce the need for additional investment in traditional network assets. By using emerging technology to overcome traditional network limits, it also allows the rapid uptake of EVs to continue unabated.”

Vector will supply two smart V2H bi-directional systems to a mix of up to 24 participating Piha residents over a year, then monitor energy use patterns and measure the impact they have on the network.

As an additional benefit to participating Piha residents, the V2H systems can also act as a backup generator – increasing their resilience during a power cut.

“Like most sparsely populated and isolated coastal communities, Piha receives its electricity supply from a single 11-kilovolt feeder cable,” Botha says. “The cable is a one-way overhead line that runs along an easement through dense bush. Unfortunately, this makes the line more vulnerable to outages compared to more populated areas of Auckland, where multiple feeder cables often make it easier to back-feed electricity to customers during a power outage, minimising disruptions.”

If there is a short-term network cut, the EV and V2H system can be used as a temporary generator for up to several hours.

Vector’s project is among 31 approved in the fifth round of the fund administered by the Energy Efficiency and Conversation Authority (EECA).