16. Decoding Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G): Technical Insights and Beyond

In this episode of "Insiders Guide to Energy," join hosts Chris Sass and Niall Riddell as they embark on a fascinating journey into the world of Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology with the insightful V2G expert Claire Miller. This deep dive explores the technical nuances of V2G, shedding light on charger protocols like CCS and Chademo, and delving into communication standards such as ISO 15118 and OCPP. The episode offers a comprehensive understanding of the intricate relationship between electric vehicles (EVs) and the energy grid, focusing on the bidirectional energy flow that V2G technology enables. Listeners will gain a clear perspective on how V2G not only supports the energy grid but also enhances the EV user experience.

The podcast navigates through the complexities OEMs face in the rapidly changing energy market, highlighting the potential revenue streams in V2G technology. It breaks down the technicalities and market dynamics, helping listeners understand the significance of both DC and AC systems in the V2G landscape. The episode is rich in details about the evolving V2G market, offering insights into how this technology can integrate with current energy systems and contribute to a more sustainable future. The discussion on user experience, the impact on battery health, and the practical benefits of V2G technology make it relevant and accessible to a broad audience.

As an added bonus, Claire Miller shares her expertise on the future of energy and mobility. She provides exclusive insights into the cutting-edge developments in the field, from startups pioneering wireless EV charging and battery swap technologies to innovations in state of health certification for EV batteries. The episode also touches on groundbreaking work in alternative energy sources, like cracking ammonia for off-grid electricity generation. This episode of "Insiders Guide to Energy" is not just an exploration of V2G technology but a window into the future of renewable energy integration, making it a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of technology, energy, and sustainability.

Transcript

Transcript 

00:00:02 Speaker 1 

Broadcasting from Washington, DC, This is insider's guide to energy. 

00:00:35 Speaker 2 

This episode of Insiders Guide to Energy EV miniseries is Powered by Paua. 

00:00:40 Speaker 2 

Paua helps your business transition to electric vehicles by simplifying charging, managing payments, and optimizing your charging data. 

00:00:49 Speaker 2 

Welcome to insiders guide Energy Ev miniseries. I'm your host Chris Sass, and with me as co-host Niall Riddell. Neil, what's going on today? 

00:00:57 Speaker 3 

Hey, Chris. Welcome to a rainy England. It's a bit damp over here, but we are enjoying the weather still. 

00:01:03 Speaker 2 

Besides rain in England, which is not shocking, what are we going to talk about on today's podcast? 

00:01:09 Speaker 3 

So we're going to dive into the world of vehicle to grid. It's one of my pet favorite topics. We talk about how the energy in an electric vehicle battery can move in two directions and we're very lucky to have a true UK expert, a pioneer of vehicle to grid with us today. Claire, do you wanna introduce yourself? 

00:01:32 Speaker 4 

Hi guys. My name is Claire Miller. I was the director of Tech and Innovation auctor electric vehicles for four years from 2019 to 2022. And now I'm so I've. What can I say, advisor at large. So working with startups and and larger companies alike to help move the needle on decarbonization and electrification. 

00:01:53 Speaker 3 

Very cool. Now you have some true real world experience of some pretty significant vehicle to grid projects here in the UK. What led you into that? What was that project? And you know what? What can you tell us about that? 

00:02:08 Speaker 4 

Yeah, sure. Umm, well, first of all, I count myself very lucky that as a part of kind of doing this work, I have had vehicle grid at my home for over three years now. So I've, I've lived with the system, the highs, the low. 

00:02:21 Speaker 4 

Just I've you know, I've. I've done that classic kind of left my car empty and not charged it up overnight. Something didn't work in the system and I have a real kind of true user experience. But yeah, I the reason I got into it was I was asked by Fiona Howarth, who is the CEO of Optus Electric vehicles, who some of your listeners I'm sure will have heard of that octopus had. 

00:02:42 Speaker 4 

That had won a bid from the UK Government for consortia. 

00:02:46 Speaker 4 

And it was going to be called Power loop and it was about domestic vehicle to grid. It was had a customer experience this what are all the bits of the system you need all the permissions, everything technical from all the stuff that a customer sees all the way back to sort of the data platform and the control and integration with the energy markets and they needed a hand to kind of work out all of that stuff and. 

00:03:06 Speaker 4 

Knowing Fiona for a long time, she said it sounded like a real sort of Claire project and was I interested. And so that was it. I was. I was sort of drawn in from the very first conversation. This amazing concept, really futuristic. And that opened up power loop and it opened up the other part of my work there around EV leasing as well. So yeah, that was the start of it. 

00:03:26 Speaker 3 

And and to be clear, we're talking about normal people, normal householders with electric vehicles, driveways and a particular kind of charger, a particular kind of car. You know what? What did you need to be to be part of this trial? 

00:03:43 Speaker 4 

Yeah, it's it's a really good one. So for folks who are completely new to this, I'm going to put like a first health warning that. 

00:03:50 Speaker 4 

Uh, this was a trial based on the the tech that we had available. It was about proving the experience about learning about, you know, the the market forces, learning about the permissions. It wasn't about proving that this particular vehicle, this particular charger, was like the only answer. So I'm gonna say that and and now you know why? Because this comes up a lot in the world of egg. So we use. 

00:04:11 Speaker 4 

It's a leaf which has Chademo as its charging protocol. 

00:04:14 Speaker 4 

And we used a bidirectional DC charger for this trial and the one we used was from Wall Box. There was another one used in other trials at the time from a company called Indra and there are now a sort of slowly growing number of DC bidirectional charges coming. Also if anyone that sort of. 

00:04:34 Speaker 4 

Knows about Eva's at all? We'll be thinking. Well, Chademo hang on. Isn't Chamo gone out of fashion? And aren't we going towards CSCS 2IN in U Kenya? And yes, this is about what was available at the time to prove what it was like and to develop a customer experience and test that all out. And that was what was available. So that. 

00:04:52 Speaker 4 

That we used and actually the irony of Chademo going out of fashion is it's an incredibly solid, stable kind of comms protocol and it has a really sturdy physical connector as well. So like, yeah, I mean anyone that knows, you know, like really probably like very free Chademo. And so this is slightly heartbreaking for us, but it was what we needed. 

00:05:12 Speaker 4 

To prove out all these pieces of the of the system for basically getting energy out of that car back into the home and back onto the grid and and. 

00:05:20 Speaker 4 

Learning about what would make customers do that, what would make them interested in that? What would they feel rewarded them? Would they remember to plug in? These are all the kind of questions we were asking wanted to ask, but to get to those questions, we had to build out all those pieces of the system first. 

00:05:35 Speaker 3 

And and just to complete our understanding of the story, when exactly was this that you were first? Well, I guess when did you win the project and when did you start putting? 

00:05:44 Speaker 3 

Customers into the trial. 

00:05:45 Speaker 4 

Oh, that's such a killer question, so. 

00:05:47 Speaker 4 

The the the competition itself was through 2017 into 2018. It was quite long time ago now. The early kind of concept work development work was in sort of 2019 into 2020 and really on reflection it was a super ambitious project from in the UK and and I could call for this you know from what was then. 

00:06:07 Speaker 4 

Days now does because actually a lot of those pieces of the system were not there and we're not available. So one of the key issues we had on this project and other projects like it was having those charges available and having that kind of comms sort of digital world built didn't exist. 

00:06:23 Speaker 4 

We then were stuck for a year with COVID. We couldn't install things we couldn't deliver cars and so eventually we had a that everybody's deadline moved out a year. So actually we were finishing up sort of March time last year and in fact, power loop sort of carried on into June, July time because we, we we got an extension to complete the integration with the UK's. 

00:06:44 Speaker 4 

National Grid balancing mechanism. So that's something we maybe come on to if that's of interest to the to the listeners from an energy perspective, that was a really crucial piece of work to prove that you know we could send the signal from the. 

00:06:56 Speaker 4 

Two vehicles to export for the first time now. We weren't settled. That's very important. That's a bit of a nuance. That's important. Folk. We. We proved that we could bid in and then received that signal back through something called the wider access API. The Wapi octopus has suddenly gone on to actually complete that integration and test with National Grid. And actually. 

00:07:17 Speaker 4 

Have cars charging it through the balancing mechanism. I guess the next next step will be when there's then a settled export period. So. So yeah. So that's what, that's what power it was all. 

00:07:28 Speaker 2 

So it sounds like an amazing project. It seemed a bit early. Now I remember having other guests on it and we spoke with about a project in the Northwest in the US where they basically had two EV's. I guess, you know, when you're doing this kind of testing, are you doing it with one EV or are you? 

00:07:45 Speaker 2 

Doing it with a small point. 

00:07:48 Speaker 4 

We, we. 

00:07:49 Speaker 4 

Ohh no we we had 135 AM customers on the trial and actually part of the trial design was uh. 

00:07:58 Speaker 4 

Could we encourage or could we could we interest folk in actually taking part in VTG and could we interest them in taking at least on a vehicle and could we interest them in it? So we had about 2000 people actually contacted all tolls, about 135 of them ended up taking part and actually. 

00:08:14 Speaker 4 

In terms of proving integrations like ones enough when you're doing, you know point to point integrations. But actually when you want to understand and and and learn and observe, how does a group of people work then yeah, it was. It was a good number. You know, the next stage of this is actually there are folks now smart charging their vehicles and being smart charged. We're learning about that. 

00:08:34 Speaker 4 

So. So yeah, it was a really good number for us. It was a challenge to get to that number, to be honest, from lots of reasons. But it was all good learn. 

00:08:43 Speaker 2 

And during the period that you were doing this, you were saying this post COVID was energy prices high enough to really excite people. I think one of the the drivers are energy pricing. So you know and is, you know, if energy prices are up, people are super excited about this. Was that helping your cause at the time? 

00:09:01 Speaker 4 

So we at that stage at octopus, so from octopus energy perspective, we're exploring like what might, uh, like smart tariffs look like so we. 

00:09:14 Speaker 4 

We didn't have a tariff at that stage that had been designed for vehicle to grid. And so our first step into the project was actually a kind of more of a reward base. So it was, if you do a certain number of sessions a month. 

00:09:28 Speaker 4 

We will give you a certain reward and and we want to understand like was that enough was that interesting, would it would it would people remember to plug. 

00:09:36 Speaker 4 

In through the project, we looked at tariff design. 

00:09:39 Speaker 4 

And we actually then transitioned to a tariff, which was an import and an export tariff. So we kind of a dual set up and and that flushed out all kinds of interesting stuff around you know folks who have the feeding tariff in the UK, there was a you know a challenge around potential double dipping and that that kind of counted them out of the tariff because they can't have an export MPAN. So there's lots of like. 

00:10:00 Speaker 4 

Edge cases it flushed out. But yeah, in effect we kind of trialled, I guess, like the flex platform provider angle which. 

00:10:08 Speaker 4 

Which is. Here's a reward for what you're doing, and then we we moved to a kind of maybe energy retailer angle, which is here's a set of tariffs, which bakes in the whole reward. And actually, to your point about, you know, about costs and things. Yeah, that that is a, I guess, always a work in progress. And you kind of have to set that based on where the market's at. 

00:10:28 Speaker 4 

But ultimately the import tariff ended up being intelligent octopus, which folks can have a look at now, which is the smart Flex backed six hours of cheap energy overnight and at any time when the battery is flexed and the import. 

00:10:43 Speaker 4 

Became it's a really simple dual band tariff, which is you get paid more at tea time, so you get paid more in the evening, four to seven and you get back the same as that cheap import at any other time. So you're always, you're always kind of netting out. But for those for those periods of time when you're called upon to to import or export. 

00:11:03 Speaker 4 

You're accessing the best rates. That's how we ended up. Yes, we ended up getting to and we got incredibly good compliance. People were very positive about it. And I think the main thing was about building up trust and about, you know, folks actually trusting that whilst we were taking the battery down to sort of 30%, we were going to charge it back up again once they got that. 

00:11:22 Speaker 4 

Must everything else sort of flowed? 

00:11:26 Speaker 3 

And and within this you've tested a tariff and that tariff has had particular prices and you've then assumed you're going to get some consumer behavior. Are you able to give us an idea as to the magic number? At what point do these and they're going to be quite engaged because they are child participants and they've chosen to be part of. 

00:11:47 Speaker 3 

This at what point do consumers start to, you know, switch on? Is it £100 a year, £200, a year, £300 a year? And can we make that money? 

00:11:56 Speaker 4 

Yeah, I mean still a work in progress I think is is a fair thing to say that the the politicians answer, but. 

00:12:05 Speaker 4 

With this trial, we ended up with quite a lot of early adopters and so early adopters are always keen and will always engage. 

00:12:11 Speaker 4 

And whilst they're really important, the people who will put up with all the, you know, bumpy experiences and and the kind of the difficult times you, we're not designing products we don't, we mustn't design products just for those folks. We need to do that for the mass market as well. So I guess I guess that the the brutal truth is that we don't really know yet because we haven't reached the mass market but. 

00:12:31 Speaker 4 

Certainly, once folks trust that the car will be discharged and charged overnight, then plugging in compliance is a non issue because plugging in. 

00:12:41 Speaker 4 

Is easy, and so if it's all done automatically, it's a no brainer so that that from a behavior perspective was was great to see. And then in terms of the the reward, I think that's the other open question is actually once customers are engaged in the concept that it might be beneficial for them and they're convinced that it won't be extra. 

00:13:02 Speaker 4 

Extra cost them it unlocks some cheaper tariffs. Import maybe unlock some payment export maybe unlock some kind of. 

00:13:08 Speaker 4 

Ward, then you're kind of at the mercy of the market and then the the Devils in the detail of how you are able to participate in flex and how you share those profits back. So how you share that revenue between not just you know you maybe an energy company flex provider you know charge point manufacturer OEM. But don't forget the customer as well so. 

00:13:28 Speaker 4 

I guess it's it's really hard to say right now and I am engaged in like conversations daily with multiple of these different actors in this system to understand like who owns the customer, how do you make sure the customer gets their fair reward and who else is part of that revenue stack and revenue share. 

00:13:47 Speaker 2 

Now are the folks that are you're working with? Are they mostly in single family dwellings then that they have the the full benefit of having the charger and battery for their own use? Or does this extend out to someone at this stage even to a multifamily? 

00:14:03 Speaker 4 

So the design of this trial was specifically around being able to have a driveway so we could install the charger to also test. Would customers take a lease on a vehicle to also test? 

00:14:16 Speaker 4 

Just how it would work with a single smart meter. So one import MPAN, one export MPAN. So the design of this power loop trial was specifically around that and actually I'm not aware of any trials going on right now in the UK around like multi dwelling units. And actually I think. 

00:14:38 Speaker 4 

Understanding the different building blocks of the system is what this gave us, but yeah, I think it's an interesting observation and it's an important reflection which is. 

00:14:48 Speaker 4 

We really need this these vehicles to come to market and we really need sort of ranges of, you know, charges to start actually exploring different use cases. When I look across to what's going on in Utrecht as an example of somewhere where there's, you know, something a bit more, can I say kind of multidimensional going on, you know, they have banks of. 

00:15:07 Speaker 4 

Bidirectional charges with cars that are like car sharing in all parked together. You also have on St. bidirectional charges for folks to park up cars and leave them there. And so I think, you know, we are still aware away from that in the UK from seeing like the first kind of scale. 

00:15:25 Speaker 4 

Kind of block of flats or the first scale like feature G car park, but a lot of that is not about the willingness of, I don't know, like the the building owners or the car park owners. It's more about that technology coming to market at scale so that it can be deployed in different use cases. 

00:15:43 Speaker 3 

And and that leads us to this incredible question around, you know, to make this system work. And there's quite a few moving pieces you need the energy system to adapt. And I think they're starting to realise that you can bring small, aggregated assets together. You need the charger to be available. And I think you've said that's available. But let's talk about the vehicles. 

00:16:02 Speaker 3 

You know what's the list today look like of V2G capable vehicles? You know? Is it any longer than one hand? We maybe made it onto 2 hands yet, or are we still Nissan leaf, Nissan Leaf, Nissan Leaf? 

00:16:13 Speaker 4 

Yeah, I mean, so I guess that's the absolute kind of foundation to all of this is it's V2G and so the V is absolutely critical. So yeah, so so we mentioned earlier moving across from chatter mode to CCC. 

00:16:28 Speaker 4 

Yes. And actually in North America, you know, NACS in ACS has kind of come along the rails and is and is now kind of pretty much well. It's not not quite ubiquitous, but anyone that's watching who's adopting that standard is seeing it. You know, the big ones have gone. So everyone will probably go. But actually you know those are about, you know those are about the physical connector. 

00:16:48 Speaker 4 

And about the arrangement of of cables going in and out to those connectors, there's also like communication standard behind that which has been in development for a long time, is coming, and that's ISO 5118, dash 20. And then there's another common standard. 

00:17:02 Speaker 4 

Between like certainly domestic workplace charges, which is OCP. Currently 2.0 point one, but let's see as they get us up, gets up revved, so lots of pieces of the puzzle that are not visible to customers. So and bring it back to the OEMs. 

00:17:19 Speaker 4 

I would say like from my experience and my knowledge, there are many manufacturers who have this working. There are some who are actively talking about. 

00:17:28 Speaker 4 

Bringing it, I am still holding my breath. I think we all are. For which one will bring it to market first in the UK as a V2G product. So the reason I think it's going slowly is a lack of confidence in the business model. The technology absolutely works. The standard is there or thereabouts. 

00:17:50 Speaker 4 

You know that there's there's, there's a clarity around that side of things certainly from the DC perspective, maybe we talk about AC and DC systems in a SEC when we talk about the vehicle. 

00:18:01 Speaker 4 

Actually, clarity around what role will the OEM play in this this energy market when we're talking about it as a battery on wheels rather than as a, you know, mobility asset, I don't think it's clear at all. And I think that as I mentioned, there are multiple actors in this ecosystem, all of whom feel like they should have some parts and some share in the revenues. 

00:18:21 Speaker 4 

That are potentially realised. 

00:18:24 Speaker 4 

Through discharging, charging the battery to the grid. Ultimately, and I don't think the OEMs really have confidence and and a clear pathway to how will they get their peace and and if we take a step back and think about you know only you know 5-10 years ago vehicle manufacturer made vehicles they maybe had a place in the aftermarket. 

00:18:44 Speaker 4 

Servicing maintenance, repair and in you know trying to woo customers back after their, you know maybe their lease to get another vehicle with them or to buy another vehicle in future. Now suddenly they have a world of connected vehicles, services, energy services it's. 

00:18:59 Speaker 4 

It's in all directions. There's a lot of new for vehicle manufacturers, not to mention the fact, obviously that they're going electric. So I don't really, you know, honestly know how high up right now in their priority kind of making VG work is and I guess you know, we as energy stroke industry. 

00:19:19 Speaker 4 

Folk can help by showing the pathway to this working by showing customers interested and and by helping to sort of flush out what those services and rewards can look like. But for me that's that's the absolute hot topic at the moment is how how to get the vehicles you know unlocked on the road and and participating. 

00:19:38 Speaker 3 

So so you gave me a a great political answer on the cost. Let's talk about the revenue. Is there enough revenue in here that everyone can have a slice of the pie? Can the auto OEM get something? Do they need something to, you know, guarantee warranties on the battery, how much does the consumer need? How much does the energy supplier need? 

00:19:58 Speaker 3 

And where is that revenue stack coming from? Is it all grid services? Is there some local benefit you know, how do we create this business case? Because understanding that business case seems to be the unlock for how we make. 

00:20:09 Speaker 3 

This happen. 

00:20:10 Speaker 4 

Yeah, absolutely. And so I guess taking the market first, the the. 

00:20:14 Speaker 4 

It is evolving and exploding. Actually in some parts and changing all the time. So thinking just on the UK, you know market at the moment at the moment you've got kind of National Grid services. So we mentioned balancing mechanism right now still the most lucrative market to be able to respond to. 

00:20:35 Speaker 4 

There are other services. Which vehicles? 

00:20:39 Speaker 4 

Could participate in maybe in the future will participate in, depending on how fast, how fast the frequency response is required and and and and. So that's really interesting. Then there are local markets. So there are, you know distributed network operating in the UK that are transitioning to become you know system operators. 

00:20:59 Speaker 4 

And and very much focused on. 

00:21:02 Speaker 4 

Doing more with the grid that they have got locally and so I'm going to I'm going to use that, that great analogy of, you know, National Grid is the motorways and your, you know, your local sort of distribution network are the are your sort of local and rural roads all the way down to your street, your house, your building and and then we've got, you know, folks like Piccolo looking at hyper localized. 

00:21:22 Speaker 4 

Demands and high hyper localized grid restrictions and opportunities to participate right down to like one St. 

00:21:30 Speaker 4 

Versus another street. So all of that's changing. We also have like wholesale market change coming right. So off German, the UK announced last week the the change of code to enable non energy retailers to participate in wholesale markets that will come in at back end of next year, November 2024 which is going to open up the opportunity for non energy retailers. 

00:21:50 Speaker 4 

To participate in those flex opportunities around wholesale. So I guess you know, even as as like geeky individuals that we are, you and I nil, we're like Chris, off being a geek. But you know we're. 

00:22:02 Speaker 4 

We we can see all this change happening, right and we don't have to necessarily place big bets. Then you look all the way across to the auto manufacturers and you go. 

00:22:10 Speaker 4 

Yeah, we're really good at making cars and we already kind of put an awful lot of time and money into, like, electrifying those vehicles. And now we have to think about energy strategy and how we go to market in, in a market which is exploding and changing. And that's just the UK. So you can look at places like California, like Texas and different parts of Europe like Australia is, is, is starting to like come up. 

00:22:31 Speaker 4 

Up the rails as well, so I think. 

00:22:34 Speaker 4 

You know, thinking about those markets and how they should play is is a huge challenge for them. And then your point was like your question was around, you know, like what's the revenue and and how does that get split well. 

00:22:45 Speaker 4 

Yeah, the ultimately the customer needs to be rewarded for for engaging in those markets and you know doing doing the thing, doing the plugging in, trusting the market, trusting the system. So that's important. And if they don't get rewarded then then why would you even? 

00:23:00 Speaker 4 

Why would you bother, right? Why would you even bother? I think also there's a lot of value to be extracted just through smart charging, which is the orchestrated overnight charging which which you can also kind of generate revenue from, right. So you're providing an A distributed battery ultimately to to put energy. So, so then there's an argument about what will the export piece give us. And then I guess. 

00:23:21 Speaker 4 

You know who? Who else should have have a say in this? And you mentioned UM, you know, charge point manufacturers, I think I think that's, you know as those products become commoditised to A to a a lesser or greater extent then they will also be thinking about they are a gateway to flexibility, right. So you know if you've got a charge point which is got a a super high quality. 

00:23:41 Speaker 4 

Meter. It could become like a sub meter point. You know you could be doing billing off that charge point at home or on the street. 

00:23:47 Speaker 4 

And and it opens up kind of any vehicle could plug in. So I think there's there's there's lots of other kind of folk in in the mix there thinking about how do they play and how do they get involved. And then the one thing I wanted to pick up there, you mentioned around battery degradation is the killer question that always comes up when we talk about VG and the really awesome news is if you talk to well, you talk to manufacturers off the record and if you talk to. 

00:24:08 Speaker 4 

Battery experts and and and chemists and and kind of folks who are in that realm. What you very quickly learn is that these EV's are pretty awesome and these batteries are pretty amazing. And from a warranty perspective, the. 

00:24:22 Speaker 4 

Mental discharging of energy from a vehicle on a driveway or parked somewhere and then gently charging it back again in a kind of, you know, 12 hour ish cycle is absolute kind of heaven for a battery. That's that's just a really great way to be. And in fact for some battery chemistries it it could even kind of immediate. 

00:24:42 Speaker 4 

The batteries health it it could, you know, help to reduce things like dendrite growth and and the kind of platelets. 

00:24:47 Speaker 4 

Whereas if you're doing a lot of wrapper charging at high temperatures, that's really not fun for a battery and and that can have impacts on battery degradation and the state of health and and. And so I think there's a lot of education. There's also needed because and I say this as a mechanical engineer by training like that, you know it's not the same as an engine. 

00:25:08 Speaker 4 

And we all have to kind of relearn everything we thought we knew about these propulsion technologies. And so when we use mileage as a proxy for how that and engine may or may not be doing, we can't do the same with a with a battery. We need to think about the chemistry. We need to think about how it's been charged. 

00:25:26 Speaker 4 

How frequently, how fast and VTG certainly is, is that the kind of not scary at all end? And I guess the final one is around to your point, warranty the OEM's want to have, you know they they want to produce great products and they want to make sure that they are also kind of guiding how their vehicles are being used and. And so even though. 

00:25:46 Speaker 4 

The the battery chemistry, you know, theory and evidence is saying it's not a problem. Those OEMs also need to build that into their warranties, which already pretty amazing, impressive, right, like 8 years and 100,000 miles is pretty standard right now for a battery without any VG. 

00:26:04 Speaker 2 

So that was a lot there. There's a lot of information that was coming at me really fast and and I guess for the average consumer that's probably too much, right, they they don't want to have to think about any of this. They just want to buy a car, right. And then if you're going to put a program together that saves me some money, great, more power to you. 

00:26:24 Speaker 2 

But you mentioned in the intro about. 

00:26:28 Speaker 2 

Participating in in some of this. This trial. Perhaps. So what? What's the user experience like? I guess that's probably what what most of our audience that aren't in the grid business or aren't in the EV business. What's the user? 

00:26:41 Speaker 4 

Well, like I I. 

00:26:42 Speaker 4 

Guess you know underwhelming in a good way, because actually, if you're just a regular person who wants to get on with their life and use this car as a car, uh, you don't want it to interfere. You don't want to be up all night programming stuff you don't want to have an app that you need to interact with frequently. And actually the the experience. 

00:27:01 Speaker 4 

Is set and forget, and actually the the most like kind of light touch, minimal interaction the better because it should just work in the background because it shouldn't be something that you. 

00:27:12 Speaker 4 

Have to do. 

00:27:13 Speaker 4 

Or or work on and so actually designing these apps and experiences and that there are quite a few then out there now for smart charging which in effect is. 

00:27:22 Speaker 4 

Is, you know, half of the bidirectional bit right, it's it's the charging back. We just we haven't got to the kind of exporting the discharging bit yet and it's literally what what time do you need your car back and and what percentage state of charge do you want to be in the battery literally two pieces of. 

00:27:35 Speaker 4 

Information and it's that simple. So I mean that's that's the best experience for the mass market because it's super easy and the only time you might ever want to even then change that is if you realize that maybe you're not doing as many miles as you thought you would. And so you don't wanna charge the car so much. You might you might for some reason want to change that. 

00:27:55 Speaker 4 

Start time in the morning, but I think for most people, umm a bit, a bit like sadly, most technologies they'll interact with it a lot in the first week or two or three or a month. 

00:28:03 Speaker 4 

And then they'll be happy and it will work and they won't open. 

00:28:06 Speaker 4 

It and touch it. 

00:28:09 Speaker 2 

Now you you also said that people needed to plug in and that was seen. It seemed to be one of the biggest hurdle that I've heard. You mentioned multiple times in this interview is to remember to plug in. So of the 130 folks or whatever, how how often did people forget when they get home to plug the car in that night? 

00:28:28 Speaker 4 

Remarkably infrequently, actually, so we're seeing like 80 to 90% compliance. 

00:28:34 Speaker 4 

UM, and you know, it was not all roses. So some of that for sure was around the charger, stopped working or the connections is is not working. And last night it didn't charge up. And I thought it would and and that's sort of was difficult so there it was not all plain sailing it didn't work straight out the box at all but once. 

00:28:54 Speaker 4 

People were becoming confident and could trust it. Then they were plugging in every night, because why wouldn't you? Because you had. 

00:29:00 Speaker 4 

Chance to, you know, get some money, ultimately. And that's how the system worked. You know the the export MPAN works just like an import M pan. It gives an address for your smart meter and it lets the system pay you as opposed to Bill you. So customers were seeing actual money back into their energy accounts as they were being paid for their export. 

00:29:21 Speaker 4 

Actually, if we take a step back, you know VG. Yes, it's a vehicle battery. 

00:29:26 Speaker 4 

But it's just the same concept as having a static battery installed in your home and or or. You know, having solar that exports via your smart meter, so I guess. 

00:29:37 Speaker 4 

Vita's interesting and it's exciting, and it's pretty sexy because it's a vehicle, but it's also a battery, and that's really cool. But actually, if you kind of boil it up, it's literally it's storage, which can which can store and it can export and and again like there's folks that get geeky about that, but for customers they just need to trust that it will be a car and they need it to be a car and that there are some other benefits they might get from that. 

00:29:58 Speaker 4 

And that needs to be super easy for them as well. 

00:30:04 Speaker 3 

So Claire, you mentioned briefly that you are a mechanical engineer. You know you've suddenly ended up running this hugely complex engineering challenge, getting consumers to plug their cars in and try and understand the energy market. How did you come about into a career like this? 

00:30:21 Speaker 3 

And why did? 

00:30:21 Speaker 3 

Fiona know that your back story was like that and. 

00:30:24 Speaker 3 

Thank you. 

00:30:27 Speaker 4 

Well, well, maybe start with that last question. So Fiona and I worked together before. We'd worked at a company called Alert me, which was an early Internet of Things company based in Cambridge. It went on to be bought by British Gas and is now called Hive. So some UK folks will probably have heard of Hive. 

00:30:46 Speaker 4 

We also launched products in the US with a company called Lowe's, so. 

00:30:49 Speaker 4 

Of sort of stores all across the US, which used to stock the product. So we'd worked on this Internet of Things product. Yeah, back in like 2011, 2012, thinking about how do you interact with things like boilers in the home, things like sensors in the home and how do you build experiences based on kind of, yeah, trust and automation, so. 

00:31:09 Speaker 4 

So we had that experience together and in fact we went back even further. So we both did engineering union at different universities. We both won a prize from the World Academy of Engineering. So we've known each other from really early days and. 

00:31:19 Speaker 4 

Fiona's sort of career path has been kind of more commercial and into the kind of commercial leadership, and mine is much more in the technical and the innovation and R&D side. So out of university, I went to imperial and then I joined a tech consultancy and I did hands on tech and R&D and that kind of thing. So I did a lot of medical devices, a lot of medical equipment. 

00:31:40 Speaker 4 

I lived in America. I lived across Europe and then I left the consulting business because I didn't really fancy being a partner in a consulting firm. I wanted to carry on doing hands on development and I spent nine years freelance, so I was. 

00:31:53 Speaker 4 

Yeah, I was hidden everywhere doing lots of R&D innovation stuff, spent a lot of time going backwards to China. So I did a lot of projects which required sort of time in manufacturing environments in China and working with teams, technologies getting those to market and solving problems. And that's what I really love doing. 

00:32:14 Speaker 4 

Is that interaction of kind of the people technology? 

00:32:17 Speaker 4 

Getting it to customers and making a difference with the technology. So yeah, so it wasn't too big a leap from sort of the medical staff through to kind of the early, I would say kind of home tech, clean tech stuff, Alert me. And so yeah, so coming finally into into octopus and working on this V2G was awesome. And then. 

00:32:37 Speaker 4 

In parallel to power loop. The other thing I was doing through those four years was also, you know, Director of Tech Innovation or the innovation BIT was parallel the. 

00:32:44 Speaker 4 

Bit was architecting and building out the initial systems for the EV leasing business, Octopus electric vehicles, so also learning about how do you design and build systems for your your your OPS teams to actually and sales and OPS teams to to sell cars and and to support them in life, but also for customers. What's the customer experience of? 

00:33:05 Speaker 4 

You know, specifying a car online and and doing a kind of digital purchasing journey. So. So yeah, it was a it was a very busy, busy four years I spent octopus but it brought lots of things together. I absolutely love and and you know it's it was a wonderful experience. 

00:33:20 Speaker 3 

So. So you've gone on this journey with octopus, and you're now, I believe, consulting again, you're looking to the future and helping businesses with technology that might appear in this ecosystem as we look forward. I personally have a hypothesis that future vehicle to grid will be in the world of AC. What are your thoughts on where the future of vehicle to grid goes and what else are you looking at that? 

00:33:42 Speaker 3 

Would be exciting for our listeners. 

00:33:45 Speaker 4 

Yeah. Yeah. So I I made a decision that, you know, Octopus CV was sort of wonderfully successful and uh and I and I'm sort of, I'm the early stage person, so. Umm, yeah, pulling stuff up from the ground and kind of making it work to start with. And and they're in like super growth mode, just gone through 10,000 vehicles on the road and you know, they need amazing scale up people so. 

00:34:06 Speaker 4 

So that was what really prompted my decision to kind of. 

00:34:09 Speaker 4 

Take a step out. I still have a bit of an association with octopus. You'll never probably never get rid of me, but yeah, I I wanted to get out there with startups. And who at that very early stage and and how these technologies come together and and are applied to different parts of the world. So I've got, you know, some interest in sort of fleet vehicles, fans, heavier stuff, you know, maybe. 

00:34:29 Speaker 4 

Other technologies that are out there that are coming and going to be important thing, maybe things around drones for example, which will also form part of this future. You know, picture of of electrification and and transport and things like that. So. So yeah, so I'll come on to that in a SEC. But in terms of the DC versus AC, which I think is a yeah, a really interesting topic I think personally I think we'll see the next few years. 

00:34:50 Speaker 4 

Will lean towards DC and what DC means for a customer is that the vehicle manufacturer? 

00:34:55 Speaker 4 

Doesn't build their vehicle able to turn AC into DC and DC back into AC on the vehicle. You need a special charger which has got an inverter in it. It's heavy, it's expensive. It is. Yeah, it it's quite expensive for the customer. So it's probably going to be. 

00:35:11 Speaker 4 

I don't know. 

00:35:13 Speaker 4 

I'm guessing, but you know 3000 lbs. 

00:35:15 Speaker 4 

Maybe 2-2 threes, but how big it gets, which is in a significant outlay. 

00:35:20 Speaker 4 

It's also simpler because you have one fixed point on the grid, and so from grid permissions you know you need permission to export to the grid and so I think it's even easier, like sort of foot in the door for the manufacturers. But I think ultimately we'll see AC coming to the fore. I think there are lots of technical benefits to doing AC, I mean not least for the customer. 

00:35:40 Speaker 4 

Because uh, you know, you have that inverter on the vehicle and what that means is that the the vehicle itself becomes that bidirectional inverter, which means the customer needs a much simpler charger, much more in the kind of, you know, 5 to 500 to 1000 LB range, which is where we see charges right now. 

00:35:55 Speaker 4 

People say to me, oh, no, does it mean charger? And it's like unfortunately you will need. 

00:35:58 Speaker 4 

A new charger. However, by the time this is coming, probably that charger on your wall is going to be right ready for an upgrade. Like all consumer electronics like that's that's just part and parcel of how tech moves forward. And I think that's much better for the customer. 

00:36:12 Speaker 4 

Some interesting challenges there for the grid connection, because now the the vehicle itself becomes also the grid forming inverter, which for folks who are into this stuff will know. You'll then have to have maybe the inverter and maybe the vehicle around it as its enclosure tested for, you know, for that grid connection. So in the UK that's G 99. In Europe we're seeing. 

00:36:30 Speaker 4 

Probably moving towards harmonization of grid codes, we'll see us. 

00:36:34 Speaker 4 

AC is quite a way off in the US. There's there's not yet a kind of clear pathway to like installing a CV2G, although there's some really interesting working groups going on in California, for example, looking at AC, there's really interesting stuff coming from Charon now as a working group and also around ISO, fifty 18-20 AC kind of extension as well so. 

00:36:54 Speaker 4 

I think AC ultimately, but we've we've got sort of you know a good, a good five to 10 years I think of working it out. And so when people say to me but What Car should I get because I don't get the wrong car. The answer is get the car that suits you. Now for your mobility needs now. 

00:37:10 Speaker 4 

Don't. Don't wait and wait because this is going to come in fits and starts and people are gonna get involved at different stages as this sort of this thing develops. So. Yeah. And then just a little nod to the to the other startups. I'm sort of working with. So I guess I wanted to shout out people like electric green who are working on wireless charging for, for fleets. So sort of one to many system which is going to be new to the world. 

00:37:30 Speaker 4 

Do something different in the world of wireless. 

00:37:33 Speaker 4 

They're about to start working with Royal Mail in the UK, who have one of the the sort of largest and fastest electrifying fleets in the UK. There's another company called Chul, which is spelled TUAL. They're looking at putting an additional battery pack onto fleet vehicles like vans so that you can have folks who don't need a charge point at home if they charge overnight and they a lot. 

00:37:53 Speaker 4 

Folks do take vans home overnight because there's there isn't depot space, but we don't want those people taking time out of their working day to be charging. So there's an interesting battery swap, maybe even range extension, maybe just simplifying that whole world of take home fleet not requiring a a kind of fixed charger. So there are two really interesting companies. There's a whole range of others like clear what who are looking at state of health because I mean. 

00:38:15 Speaker 4 

Early early on, Chris mentioned, you know. 

00:38:17 Speaker 4 

Education too much information. What do I want to know? I want to know as as a normal cost customer. Normal buyer of a second hand vehicle. Is this battery any good? Can I trust that this car is going to do what I think it's going to do? So clear what I'm looking at actually a really simplified state of health certificate for vehicles that won't require another device using your smartphone data. 

00:38:37 Speaker 4 

I guess those those are three really interesting ones. And then I guess off into the world of of kind of new tech as a company called catalysis who are looking at cracking ammonia as an off grid electricity generating source. So think about you know very far off grid applications, think about construction in town. 

00:38:55 Speaker 4 

Cities. That's a really interesting one that's coming. And then I guess, finally, Yeats, who are further and faster drones who go beyond line of sight incredibly fast, you know, think about maybe maintenance applications. Offshore applications. Yeah, there's there's some amazing technologies that are coming all around the world of renewables and clean tech and that that gets me so fired up. So. 

00:39:16 Speaker 4 

Absolutely love working on VTG and and we'll continue to work on that with lots of folk in the industry, but there's lots of fun to come in other places as well. 

00:39:27 Speaker 3 

This has been an, you know, incredible journey, diving into loads of different technologies. You've taken us on quite a journey through the UK VG landscape and opened up at the end there about some of the incredible stuff that's coming and maybe Chris and I should have a chat about bringing some of these guys on as hosts at as guests at later stage. So super exciting. 

00:39:47 Speaker 3 

Thank you ever so much your time, Claire. I really appreciated that. 

00:39:50 Speaker 4 

Thanks for having me. It's been brilliant. 

00:39:54 Speaker 2 

For our audience, we hope you've enjoyed this episode of Insiders Guide Energy EV miniseries a bit about going vehicle to grid. I hope you've enjoyed the content as much as we did, making it. If you did, don't forget to subscribe. Find us on YouTube and we'll see you again next time on the insiders. 

00:40:09 Speaker 2 

Guide to Energy podcast bye bye.