After Utrecht and Eindhoven, Ghent is now building V2G charging plaza: ‘This will be the new normal’
Ghent will start a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) pilot project this year. The city will have a charging station where electric cars will not only be charged, but can also feed electricity back into the grid at peak times. Het Nieuwsblad reports.
Ghent’s College of Aldermen last week approved a permit for a V2G charging square. It concerns charging infrastructure with two charging points for electric share cars and four for private electric cars. The exact location is not yet known, but the city wants to have the charging plaza operational before the summer and test the bi-directional charging system for at least a year, Filip Watteeuw, alderman for Climate and Energy of Ghent, reported in an interview with Het Nieuwsblad. The initiative should help keep the increasing pressure on the electricity grid manageable.
New normal
The principle behind V2G is that electric vehicles temporarily act as energy buffers. During peak moments, when household electricity consumption is high, energy from the charged cars can be used. At off-peak moments, the vehicles are recharged again. Partial cars are particularly suitable for this, as it is easy to predict when they will be needed via reservations. “This could become the new normal: In the city of the future, electric cars not only run on electricity, but also actively support the energy system,” says Watteeuw.
A budget of 85,000 euros is available for the pilot. Twenty percent of this is paid by the province of East Flanders and sixty percent comes from the European programme Interreg North Sea Europe. Ghent is working with UGent and grid operator Fluvius to evaluate the system technically and economically.
The Dutch cities of Utrecht and Eindhoven already started a V2G pilot last year. The organisers claim that bi-directional charging is already contributing to grid stability and better deployment of renewable energy there.
Read more
- Eindhoven deploys shared cars for bi-directional charging
- Vehicle-to-grid in Utrecht: electric cars as key in energy transition
