Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess has revealed VW will add vehicle-to-home (V2H) capabilities to its electric vehicles this year.
EVs powered by the company’s 77kWh battery will receive an over-the-air update, letting drivers plug into a bi-directional charger to power their homes.
V2H is a type of bi-directional charging that uses the battery pack in an electric vehicle to power a house.
Power is sent to a home’s energy storage system (e.g., Tesla Powerwall), or it can feed the distribution board directly.
Diess told Reddit in a Q&A that the company will support bidirectional charging starting with 77kWh models later this year.
“Bidirectional charging will be available this year for all ID. Models with 77 kWh battery, also via OTA update. In the beginning we will only offer Vehicle-to-home. This means you can run your dishwasher with electricity from abroad.”
Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess
Electric vehicles are perfect energy storage systems. They can power a house for days, making power cuts no problem.
The maths is simple – UK households consume on average between 8kWh and 10kWh per day, a paltry amount compared to the capacity of most electric car batteries.
If a car battery is 50kWh, then it can potentially power a house for five days (if the house consumes 8-10kWh per day).
Other bi-directional charging technologies, such as vehicle-to-load (V2L), are also gaining popularity. Several cars have V2L, including the MG ZS EV and Kia EV6.
Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) is also gathering interest with energy suppliers as a way to balance the grid. However, investment in V2G is frustratingly slow.
