On 8 December 2022, CHAdeMO Association organised the 7th edition of its V2G webinar series. Inviting industry experts from North America and zooming in on the first V2G program connected to New York City's grid, the webinar explored the potential benefits of V2G technology to enhance grid resilience with the details of implementation.
Our speakers were Melissa Chan of Fermata Energy, a CHAdeMO member charger manufacturer specialised in V2G solutions, and Samuel King-Nabi of Revel, a Brooklyn-based electric mobility and infrastructure company, who both participated in the project, together with NineDot Energy, a clean energy storage developer.
Melissa explained that Fermata Energy’s V2G charging platform turns EVs into a revenue centre that extend the fleet viability. Indeed, both unidirectional and V2G chargers can have similar upfront costs (the hardware and installation), but with V2G, the payback period could be below three years and the owner can earn around USD 15K over the charger’s 10-year lifetime, while a single direction charger can incur USD 30K in the end with the cumulative maintenance costs, according to Fermata’s projections
This V2G project deployed three Nissan LEAF EVs, paired with three Fermata Energy V2G bidirectional chargers. Based on the interconnection agreement with Con Edison, a utility based in New York City, the bidirectional chargers sent energy stored in the EV batteries back to the grid from 2:00 to 6:00 PM on summer weekdays, during local energy demand peaks. The three bidirectional chargers can export approximately 45kW back to the grid. Revel always has the option of to park and profit or drive their EVs.
Samuel pointed out that one of the most impressive points for him was that the V2G systems were seamless. While 200 Revel EVs were on the road working from 5 am to 2 am and 7 days a week, these chargers were installed at Revel’s maintenance & repair depot in Brooklyn. Charging and discharging their Nissan LEAFs, Revel could keep its operations in place at that location without having to worry about the chargers. From Monday to Friday without fail, charging at night discharging during afternoon, the system could deliver 3 MWh (megawatt-hour) to the grid during the testing period of over a month.
In terms of the implementation, he explained that the grid interconnection process was very complicated and time consuming. In fact, the engineering work could not begin until the utility company approved project interconnection to its grid and local building inspector approved its operation.
The outcomes of the project will be reported in January 2023 on Fermata Energy’s website.
