As a part of the world’s first vehicle-to-grid (V2G) project, Northumberland Park garage in North London is set to become 'virtual power station’ -- generating electricity from parked e-buses and feeding it to back to the grid.
Bus2Grid is a UK government-funded project led by energy firm, SSE Enterprise and supported by a partnership including bus manufacturer Build Your Dreams/Alexander Dennis Limited (BYD-ADL), Go Ahead Group (bus-operators), UK Power Networks, Leeds University and Scotland-based Alexander Dennis with the aggregation of the buses supported by Origami. The initial trial of the V2G technology will use batteries of 28 state-of-the-art double-decker buses, capable of returning over 1MW energy to the grid.
“Central to the challenge of decarbonising our transport and achieving climate change targets is how we can optimise the existing flexibility within the energy system,” said Niall Riddell, Smart Systems Innovation Sector Director for SSE Enterprise.
“Developing a charging infrastructure that operates in two directions so that batteries can give back as well as take from the grid is an important part of this.”
According to SSE, if the entire London bus fleet of around 9,000 vehicles were to be converted with the technology being used in the Bus2Grid project, it could theoretically provide enough energy to supply more than 150,000 homes.
“Exploiting the potential of electric buses to act as ‘mobile power stations’ will be critical to the efficient running of the grid once electric vehicles of all types become commonplace,” said Frank Thorpe, Managing Director of BYD UK.
The project is set to become operational in November and is funded by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the Office for Low Emission Vehicles (OLEV) with the support of Innovate UK.
