The US Department of Energy (DOE) alongside other government and industry partners has announced a vehicle-to-everything (V2X) memorandum of understanding (MOU) which will bring together resources from DOE, DOE national labs, state and local governments, utilities and private entities to evaluate technical and economic feasibility of integrating bidirectional charging into energy infrastructure. The MOU will also advance cybersecurity as a core component of V2X charging infrastructure.
The DOE notes that the International Energy Agency (IEA) conservatively estimates that 130 million electric vehicles (EVs) will be on the road globally by 2030. As the number of EVs grows and especially as larger trucks and buses electrify with larger batteries, there will be opportunities to use those batteries to also support the grid. The US government asserts that bidirectional plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) present immense potential for increasing the USA’s energy security while supporting the electrical grid.
“The MOU signed today represents a collaborative approach to researching and developing novel technologies that will help unify the clean energy and transportation sectors while getting more American consumers into electric vehicles,” said deputy secretary of energy Dave Turk. “Integrating charging technology that powers vehicles and simultaneously pushes energy back into the electrical grid is a win-win for the future of clean transportation and our energy resilience overall.”
The DOE also announced that it is tackling the technical challenges and barriers to the integration of tens of millions of EVs with the electric grid, commonly referred to as Vehicle Grid Integration (VGI) through the EVs@scale lab consortium, which brings together six DOE national laboratories to conduct RD&D in the areas of smart charge management, high power charging and facilities, dynamic wireless charging, codes and standards, and cyber physical security. In addition to addressing the near-term challenges to VGI to benefit all EV stakeholders, the Lab Consortium will conduct high-risk, high-reward research on EV charging and grid integration technologies.