The trial is said to be a UK first, and will install 100 units across the country which can discharge, as well as charge, an electric vehicle to a user-defined level to help stabilise the load on the National Grid during peak periods.

In turn, vehicle owners and operators will be able to earn an income from selling this energy back to the grid. This means vehicles could be charged during cheaper, off-peak periods or using renewables, which could then be used to avoid blackouts or reliance on fossil fuel power stations when the load on the grid is much higher.

The National Grid’s Future Energy team is predicting the growing electric vehicle fleet could require 500MW of extra electricity by 2020. Connecting all 18,000 Nissan EVs to the energy network could supply the equivalent output of a 180MW power plant. However, if the entire vehicle parc was electric, this could provide 370GW back to the grid – enough to power the UK, Germany and France.