As sales of electric vehicles (EVs) continue to mount, so does the need for charging infrastructure. To meet that demand, multiple initiatives to build public EV charging stations are now underway.
Right now, those chargers are largely “unidirectional”—or one-way—units in which the electricity flows from the electric grid to the vehicle. But that may soon change. Unidirectional chargers could someday be supplanted by “bidirectional” chargers that allow electricity to flow two ways—from the electric grid to the vehicle and from the vehicle to the grid. That means EV owners would be able to both charge their vehicle’s batteries from the grid when they need it and discharge (and sell) electricity from the batteries back to the grid when they don’t.
Automaker Toyota Motor North America is now exploring that idea through a collaborative research project with the Southern California-based public utility San Diego Gas & Electric Co. (SDG&E). The partners will conduct vehicle-to-grid (V2G) research for battery electric vehicles (BEVs) using a Toyota bZ4X sport utility vehicle (SUV) to explore bidirectional power flow technology.
According to Toyota, V2G technology has the potential to support customer needs through improved energy reliability and resilience, the integration of renewables, and the possibility of reduced electricity costs. For example, nearly 80% of owners currently charge their BEVs at home overnight, when grid demand is low. With bidirectional capability, these vehicles could send power back to the grid during peak demand hours or at other critical times, such as during rotating outages due to shortages in electricity supplies.
“We are embracing the concept of an entire electrified ecosystem for our customers, and the ability for vehicles to integrate with the grid is an essential component of this ecosystem,” Christopher Yang, group vice president, Toyota EV charging solutions, said in a release. “Toyota seeks to empower utilities to better anticipate and leverage the significant number of plug-in hybrid and BEVs on their grids, both as a growing source of energy demand and, in the future, energy supply.”
