Smart grid technology to spark savings for electric vehicle owners

The batteries in electric vehicles can be hooked up to the grid through charging points. With smart technology, their stored power can be tapped to smooth peaks and troughs in electricity supply across the day and night.

The trial will be rolled out through customers in AGL’s Virtual Power Plan program, which is where households with rooftop solar and batteries are linked to the grid via a smart connection that sends excess power into the grid to ease demand, and draws power from the grid when it’s plentiful and stores it for later use.

The trial will investigate how electric vehicles can play a part in a smart network. For example, the network operator could pay a vehicle owner to use their battery as a power supply when it was hooked up to the grid in peak times, while ensuring the battery was charged with cheap power overnight.

Novel charging technology will also be investigated – where the car-charging hardware, which is typically attached to a house or charging station, is removed and replaced with software managed by the network operator.