Hundreds of Polestar 3s, a virtual power plant, and custom Easee chargers are among the ingredients in the upcoming V2G project. 

Pluss

V2X/V2G

V2X, or vehicle-to-everything enables bi-directional charging, which enables the battery to discharge and make the energy available for other use cases

Often mentioned as more specific abbreviations, such as V2G (vehicle-to-grid), V2H (vehicle-to-home) or V2B (vehicle-to-building).

Polestar is launching a large-scale vehicle-to-grid (V2G) project in Gothenburg, piloting a fleet of Polestar 3 cars. Easee is part of the project, together with Swedish National Grid authority Svenska Kraftnät, local energy distributor Göteborg Energi, regional energy distributor Vattenfall and research partner Chalmers University of Technology. 

The project aims to investigate how V2G technology can be used to support the energy grid, as well as look into use cases that can be scalable and applicable across regions. 

Bidirectional charging tech allows EVs to discharge energy from the battery and can already be used today as a backup source of energy for single homes. However, EV batteries have the potential to be useful on a much larger scale. 

“Vehicle-to-grid has the potential to not only benefit the single customer, but whole communities. Using Polestar 3’s new bi-directional charging capabilities, we can explore necessary business models and community solutions that can unlock the true potential of V2G and enable owners to support the energy system when they don’t need their car.”, says Thomas Ingenlath, Polestar CEO.

EV, house and grid connected in a V2G system
Illustration: Polestar/Edithouse

Virtual power plant

One of the challenges with V2G on this scale is communication between the different players in the ecosystem. How does your car know when to charge and when to discharge? How does it keep track of the available capacity in the power grid? When and where is the energy needed? Polestar is developing a so-called Virtual Power Plant (VPP) that could solve these problems. 

The VPP connects all participating EVs to the electricity grid, calculates the capacity of batteries and initiatescharging or discharging based on grid needs. This will allow drivers to both contribute to the energy transition and monetize their EV while it’s parked, without any intervention.

“The driver only needs to plug in their charger and the VPP and smart charging tech will do the rest – optimizing the battery use and lifetime for transport and grid support”, says Emanuella Wallin, project lead V2G Polestar. 

Customized Easee chargers

Easee will supply the EV chargers for the project. The platform will be based on an upcoming MID-certified charger, with firmware customized for extended V2G-functionality. 

“We in Easee are very pleased to have the opportunity to collaborate with Polestar on the V2x pilot project. Our Product and Engineering teams view this endeavor as a great opportunity for Scandinavian innovation within EV charging technology. We look forward to further exploring this potential with our valued partner, Polestar”, says Natassja Giske Kokonaski, head of hardware in Easee. 

Read more about the project over at Polestar’s webpages