We Drive Solar and MyWheels have announced plans to transform the Dutch city of Utrecht into the world’s first municipality with a “neighborhood battery on wheels.” The system will feature 25 Ioniq 5 vehicles equipped with vehicle-to-grid (V2G) tech from Hyundai Motor.
Image: Hyundai Motor
Residents of Utrecht, the Netherlands, will have the opportunity to use shared cars as stationary batteries to store renewable energy when vehicles are not in use. Dutch companies We Drive Solar and MyWheels have said that the project will establish Utrecht as the world’s first city to provide bidirectional energy services using electric vehicles.
The companies expect to connect 300 electric shared cars in the city to bidirectional charging stations by the end of this year. These vehicles will be able to charge from the stations and also discharge energy, in order to serve as a neighborhood energy storage facility.
“The available solar and wind energy is used to charge the shared cars and can be fed back at times when there is a higher demand for sustainable electricity,” the two companies said in a statement. “Shared cars as neighborhood batteries on wheels can play an important role in countering grid congestion and thereby accelerating the energy transition.”
The station will features 25 Ioniq 5, a V2G technology developed by South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor. V2G technology is used to feed the energy stored in EV batteries back into national grids, which can help to stabilize power supplies during high-demand periods. However, in order for this technology to have a sufficient impact on grid operations, large-scale deployment is necessary.
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