Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy minister Richard Harrington has awarded £9.8m for a Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) demonstrator project.

Nissan Leaf 40kWh plugged into V2G charger

The Nissan-backed V2G ‘e4Future’ project foundation will consist of 1,000 V2G installations that will evaluate a commercial offer to electric vehicle fleet customers.

Data from the chargers will be collected in order to better understand the technical characteristics of V2G for both the vehicles and the electricity networks.

The project is being conducted by a consortium including Nuvve, two Distribution Network Operators (DNOs); UK Power Networks and Northern Powergrid, with varied grid infrastructure.

The research and analysis activities will be supported by Newcastle University and Imperial College London.

The project funding is part of a wider 21 projects (8 feasibility studies, 5 collaborative research and development projects, and 8 real-world V2G trial projects) receiving funds from a pot of £30m by OLEV and BEIS.

Francisco Carranza, managing director of Nissan Energy at Nissan Europe said: “Our EVs can be plugged into the grid and support the transmission and distribution companies in making the UK grid more sustainable and more stable. The increase of electric vehicles penetration, the introduction of more and more distributed generation and storage and the overall increase in renewable energy penetration should be done smartly.”