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NETWORK / 36 / MARCH 2018 INNOVATION A year ago the future dominance of electric vehi- cles would have been regarded by many as an "if " not "when". But in the interim we have had a conveyor belt of announcements by automo - tive manufacturers, govern- ments and even petrochemical companies with hard com- mitments to this agenda. The debate has now flipped to one of how quickly this transition will now occur. The mid 20s are talked of as the boom time, but with EV battery capacity rising at an extraordinary rate and the choice of vehicles increas - ing almost monthly, this could come sooner. EV affordability is also much less of an issue than most people appreciate as in the region of 90 per cent of new EVs are "bought" on surpris - ingly competitive personal lease deals. As we know, EVs bring together the two industry jugger - nauts. The power and automo- tive sectors have historically had no link, yet they now have a long term strategic marriage ahead of them. I cannot think of any two established and very different sectors that have to come together in such a short timeframe, let alone in circum - stances where people are at the centre and critical to success. However, the penetration of EVs remains quite low (around two per cent of new car sales) so although the sector is mov- ing incredibly quickly we still have time to design the future Investment in V2G The government is investing £30 million in vehicle-to-grid technology with 21 projects chosen to receive funding. Network will be profiling a number of these projects in future issues. Here, Mark Thompson, senior innovation lead – energy systems at Innovate UK and a Network editorial board member, provides an overview. systems, enable a win-win for EV users and energy customers alike, and create export oppor- tunities for UK businesses. The network operators and the UK in general have been well ahead of the curve in the evaluation of the impact of EVs on the network with large scale trials run in a number of DNO projects and by others such as the Energy Technologies Institute. These have assessed user behaviour, local network impact, and overall system im - pact, and have progressed from passive monitoring with "dumb" chargers, through to simple delayed charging such as in the My Electric Avenue project. The will trial more sophisticated smart charging (and potentially some vehicle to grid) schemes to look for the win-win between networks and users, deepening that level of user trust. Getting smart Smart charging and the "do smart first" approach by net- works, will provide significant value to the networks in invest- ment deferral and avoidance, while the work being done in the Smart EV project will de- velop standards to deliver this. However, the iconic jewel in the crown is vehicle to grid (V2G), the ultimate sub-set of the smart charging domain. Electric Nation is now taking it on to "smart" charging. These trials illustrate that society is on a confidence building journey with EVs and results so far show that from a user point of view it actually works out successfully even with today's vehicles. The confidence journey is in stages: Stage one - new EV users soon adjust to the difference in range capability and rarely have range anxiety issues in practice. Stage two - My Electric Avenue showed that most trial participants were comfortable with simple time delaying of into the wee hours once they learnt to trust the system. Stage three - Electric Nation The Nissan Leaf has a maximum battery power output of 110kW.