Could the EmonEVSE be converted to a V2G (Vehicle to Grid) Charger?
Or is it already hardware wise set to do so? I have a EmonEVSE as part of the PowerShaper Trial. I also have been using Octopus Energy Outgoing (export) tariff for 12 months with my Home Battery Charger. Now I have a Nissan Leaf, I want to be able to use its 62 kW battery to buy electricity using Octopus Energy Agile tariff when it is cheap and then send it back to the Grid when demand is high. This helps balance the Grid with renewable energy, that I have stored. I also get paid for selling it back to the Grid.
What I get paid varies a lot depending on demand - but today (Wed 13 Jan 2021) between 17:00 and 18:00 hrs its an more than £1.50 per kWh!!!
There are a number of V2G chargers being used in trials but there does not appear to be a publicly available V2G charger yet.
I’m not entirely sure the difference in hardware between a normal EV charger and a V2G charger. Both must have an inverter normal domestic converting AC to DC . Or is this within the EV?? For V2G somewhere along the line it must convert back from DC to AC. But, for a Nissan Leaf surely this is within EV??? The Leaf can also do V2X with X - being any device (including another EV) requiring electricity.
Can anyone with more expertise help me?? I’m sure V2G will start to take off in a big way in 2021 - particularly with large numbers of vehicles just sitting on peoples’ drives depreciating in price and not doing much good for the environment.
At present V2G only works with Cademo as far as I know.
That means whilst your Leaf is probably capable of V2G the normal Type2 connection on the OpenEVSE is not capable of V2G at present and the OpenEVSE is unlikely to have been constructed in such a way to allow this to happen in future. This is because as you hinted in your query the inverter is in the car when connected using a Type2 connection and the inverter in EVs is not designed to be reversible.
You could have a separate Chademo V2G charge point installed (and 3phase elec connection I think may also be required but could be wrong on that) but this would cost a few thousand pounds. The Chademo (and CSS) standard as DC connections so that the inverter in the charge point. This then allows a reversible inverter to be installed that is not dependent on the EV, hence can function as V2G.
I participated in the workshop hosted by Octopus yesterday on their BEIS funded Powerloop project for V2G.
A number of things emerged:
It’s only on the Leaf 40kWh and you have to be on the fixed rate tariff although there is a £30 month payment made to acknowledge that it’s a trial and you are unable to use any of their TOU tariffs.
The charger is Wallbox and they state that a CCS version may be available by 2025.
The discharge from the battery for home use/export to the grid is 6.8kW.
The current trial ends at the end of March 2021 for installs and monitoring/data capture continues for a further two years.
At the end of the lease period (2or3 yrs), the vehicle is returned to Octopus, the Wallbox unit is retained by the trialist.