EV home charging company Ohme has been helping EV drivers to plug-in for profit with the CrowdFlex energy trial.

EV home charging company Ohme has been helping EV drivers to plug-in for profit with the CrowdFlex energy trial.

The CrowdFlex trial is an Ofgem project involving Ohme, led by the Electricity System Operator for Great Britain, ESO. Ohme’s aim was to incentivise EV drivers to plug-in more.

The summer trial ran over three months between May and July. Ohme customers who chose to participate in the trial were asked to simply plug in their EVs whenever they were parked at home. Plugging-in enabled them to earn rewards – any pre-set charging schedule was unaffected.

The result was 80% more customers plugging in their EVs during the day and 50% more overnight. Increasing plug-in rates meant more EVs were available to provide helpful grid services – like shifting electricity consumption outside of peak demand. The data gathered from the trial will provide a better understanding of the level to which EV drivers can have a larger role in balancing the electricity grid in the future.

“Ohme’s summer trial results with CrowdFlex were encouraging and we saw a very positive response rate from our customers,” said David Watson, Ohme CEO, “Grid flexibility services are estimated to be able to save consumers £10 billion per year in energy costs by 2050, so it was great to be able reward our customers for plugging-in more and being a key driver of that flexibility. All they had to do was park up, plug in and let Ohme take care of the rest.”

“It’s exciting to see the first signs of the potential for domestic flexibility to help reliably manage the grid,” said Sanna Atherton, CrowdFlex Project Lead at the ESO. “CrowdFlex is developing this deeper understanding of consumer flexibility and forecasting, and will start to establish domestic flexibility as a predictable resource for the control room, also helping consumers reduce their energy costs and another step towards decarbonisation of the energy system.”

After the success of the summer trial, Ohme will be involved in a similar winter trial from September until April. This trial will see an increased number of drivers rewarded for altering their behaviour by plugging-in whenever their EV is parked at home.

Crowdflex was awarded funding through Ofgem’s Strategic Innovation Fund, which is managed in partnership with Innovate UK. The project is being delivered by a consortium of partners: OVO, Ohme, Centre for Net Zero, ERM, AWS, National Grid Electricity Distribution and Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks.

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