By Bjoern Christensen
In March 2021 the AAV2G (Advanced Australian V2G) project was kicked off with a small budget of AUD 1.2 million (USD 860,000) from the Australian Government.
The challenge was to retrofit an existing series produced light-duty EV van to bidirectional power flow and implement onboard metering capabilities to turn the EV into a potential energy wallet.
In short time we assembled a world-class core team:
- Mladen (Australian living in Paris, France)
- Ian (from Wales)
- Adam (from Melbourne, Australia)
- Bjoern (from California) and
- Greg (Hervey Bay, Australia)
We set out to work with Vedecom and Watt&Well from France using a Renault Kangoo EV van.
We decided to stand on the shoulders of previous V2G projects like the Danish Nikola and Parker projects as well as the INVENT V2G project in California and help bring V2G an extra step forward.
The main characteristics of the AAV2G project were:
- Technology:
- Renault Kangoo EV van
- Bidirectional EV AC power flow (yes AC not DC)
- Prototype bidirectional EVSE from Vedecom
- 11kW on-board charger/inverter
- IEC 15118-20 EV-EVSE protocol
- CCS
- 4 quadrants inverter
- Onboard soft metering with high accuracy
Energy services:
- Power off grid an electric heater 3kW and a light bulb (V2L – grid forming)
- Sending energy back to the grid via a bidirectional EVSE (V2G – grid following)
- Charge another EV from the Kangoo EV (V2V = Mobile charging station)
It was an incredible journey that showed what is possible when international experts, each with 25+ years of experience can achieve in a short time with a small budget. Oh, I forgot to mention that we could not travel due to Corona restrictions, so the core team never met face to face during the entire project!
So how did we do?
After only 8 months of work, we completed the project tasks and made a powerful demonstration in October 2021 showing that we had met all the objectives we set out to achieve. And by the way we also made a nice video of the demonstration to document the project results.
In summary:
- √ Project objectives met
- √ Budget met
- √ On-time met
- √ Fun during the project met
- √ Moving V2G forward met
Stay tuned for more on the AAV2G project.
By Bjoern Christensen — Bjoern is a recognized V2G (VGI) & E-Mobility expert and has led V2G defining projects and V2G (VGI) commercial deployments for the last decade.
Bjoern served as the Chief Strategy Officer (CSO) of Nuvve, the world leader in V2G (VGI) solutions, and has now after 8+ years started his new advisory company – Next-Dimension (www.Next-Dimension.org) focusing on E-Mobility, V2G and EV based Energy Services.
As CSO Bjoern was responsible for developing and implement strategies for Nuvve’s V2G/VGI expansion into the world market with the objective of positioning Nuvve as the world leader in V2G solutions.