Vehicle-to-grid charging could significantly slash average EV charging costs, delivering massive savings for fleets.

New figures from CrowdCharge show that the average cost of charging an electric vehicle at home is around half of the £1,205 yearly cost for fuelling a petrol car. Smart charging can reduce these costs to £400, but vehicle-to-grid can cut annual EV charging costs to £250 – or even less – bringing huge cost reductions for fleets along with emissions savings.

CrowdCharge, sister company to EV leasing broker DriveElectric, generated the data from fleet customers using its smart charging technology and from V2G customers at homes.

Billed as a significant breakthrough for company fleets, CrowdCharge’s smart charging technology allows EVs to be charged with the lowest cost and lowest carbon electricity.

Figures from the company’s home-based vehicle-to-grid customers have shown that drivers can charge their EVs for just £250 per year – and sometimes for free when combined with home renewables such as solar – by charging at times when electricity costs are low and selling electricity back to the grid when costs are high.

The data showing annual cost savings per EV of up to almost £1,000 for fuelling using V2G compared to petrol vehicles is particularly relevant amid the current debate on the zero emission vehicle (ZEV) mandate and EV sales in the UK, showing the cheaper whole-life costs for EVs.

But not only does V2G slash charging costs, it also enables emission savings of up to 63%. And CrowdCharge’s technology can also help to reduce the need for grid upgrades for commercial sites by intelligently managing the charging of multiple EVs.

CrowdCharge’s V2G customers have been using Nissan Leaf EVs with CHAdeMO DC charging at homes, but a new V2G trial in workplaces – the V2VNY project – is using electric vehicles with CCS, which is now the standard technology on virtually all new EVs, using AC charging.

The project uses CrowdCharge software to choose when to import and export electricity based on cost and carbon. V2G using AC charging isn’t widely commercially available at the moment, but will start to be rolled out by car manufacturers over the next year.

The implications for fleets in terms of cost and emissions savings are significant.

CrowdCharge’s technology allows companies to monitor and significantly reduce their carbon emissions from charging electric vehicles in the workplace. Harnessing artificial intelligence (AI), CrowdCharge enables accurate measurement of real-world EV charging emissions, which in itself can result in carbon savings of around 40% compared to standard EV emission reporting figures.

Further carbon reductions of up to 25% can be made by using CrowdCharge intelligent AI-powered smart charging software. Latest data shows that fleets can achieve CO2 savings of 63% in total – with reductions of up to 89% in some cases.

Mike Potter, CEO of CrowdCharge, said: “The current debate about the ZEV mandate and electric car sales figures has resulted in a focus on what incentives should be offered to encourage people to buy EVs. EVs may be perceived to be more expensive than petrol cars based on their initial purchase price, but when you factor in the fuel price for EVs being either very low or potentially zero, the argument against EVs based on cost evaporates.”

Americo Lenza, COO of CrowdCharge, added: “Our AI-driven software measures the carbon emissions involved in charging, and optimises charging to achieve the lowest possible carbon footprint, so ensuring that electric vehicles have significantly lower real-world carbon emissions – and fuel costs – than petrol vehicles.”

CrowdCharge’s AI-powered technology with patented optimisation tools also helps to unlock maximum value from V2X (vehicle to everything) services across individual vehicles to fleets and workplace ecosystems, enabling organisations to better predict and manage usage, saving money and carbon.

The technology is also being used as part of the Innovate UK V2VNY vehicle-to-grid project, which is trialling V2G using AC (alternating current) as a more affordable solution than V2g charging using DC (direct current).