19.02.2023
Some of our podcast guests have already spoken of “a few months” until German e-cars “can be used everywhere to serve the grid”. Today’s conversation partner vehemently contradicts and dampens expectations: “The bitter pill is that almost all wall boxes and electric cars out there are not designed for V2G grid service.”
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Today’s podcast guest is Dr. Andreas Piepenbrink, head of the German home storage manufacturer E3DC. The former automotive manager first explains the ever-increasing demand for stationary battery storage for private homes. In addition to the second photovoltaic boom, this demand is of course also due to the Ukraine war and the associated high and volatile electricity prices.
Many home storage owners ask themselves: “Can I charge my home storage intelligently and link it to dynamic electricity tariffs?” (YouTube comment). According to Piepenbrink, this depends on the battery manufacturer and in particular on the software that controls the home storage system. He is already giving his E3DC customers hope that these logics will be available to them very soon.
The abolition of V2H restrictions, which has now made the “VehicletoHome” concept a reality, is a positive market signal: For a few months now, e-car owners in Germany have been able to supply their homes with electricity from their e-car’s drive battery. Although registrations are still necessary in many places, all obstacles seem to have been cleared out of the way here.
However, according to Piepenbrink, the bidirectional charging of e-cars still has its limits: Contrary to other voices here in the podcast, the grid utility of e-cars (vehicle-to-grid) in particular still seems a long way off. Almost all current wall boxes and e-cars are technically not suitable for being used to support the grid at some point. “A bitter pill,” says Piepenbrink.
