This week, an experiment to use electric cars to stabilise the electricity grid started in Switzerland. The VX2 Swiss project, which will run for a year, will inject the power from the batteries of 50 electric vehicles into the grid while they are not being used.
Run from Bern, the project brings together seven companies under the oversight of the car sharing service Mobility, which will provide 50 electric Hondas spread across 40 locations in Switzerland.
The aim is to see if electric cars can be used to cover electricity shortages and increase the stability of the grid.
Mobility’s full fleet of 3,000 vehicles represent an electricity storage capacity in excess of many lakes.
More and more electric vehicles are not being used for much of the day. These unused cars could be converted into a giant collective battery that could store excess electricity production from renewables – renewables like wind and solar have production peaks that don’t always coincide with demand. So finding new ways to store these production peaks is key piece of the puzzle.
More on this:
Mobility press release (in French) – Take a 5 minute French test now
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