Study finds EVs could be used to allay power outages

ABC NEWS (Australia)

A new study has found ev's could prevent power outages spreading to tens of thousands of homes.

Transcript

00:00The power system in the Eastern Seaboard goes from South Australia to Queensland and it's

00:06all interconnected.

00:07So when there's a loss of power in Melbourne, particularly when the Loy Yang coal-fired

00:12power station went offline, which is Victoria's largest generator, we then need to find more

00:17power across the Eastern Seaboard.

00:19And so we had 16 electric vehicles plugged into the grid here in Canberra in offices

00:25or in garages of the ACT government.

00:27They noticed this drop in power supply and within seconds started to discharge power

00:32to the grid.

00:33And now as only 16 vehicles, they provided a very modest amount of that power that needed

00:38to be found to rebalance the exit of the coal plant.

00:43But it's a sign of the future where we'll have many more electric vehicles that can

00:46do this.

00:47And so, I mean, you didn't know this blackout was going to happen, but were you preparing

00:50to test an event just like that?

00:53Yeah, so we've spent years kind of preparing this technology, rolling out.

00:57There's in fact 51 electric vehicles in the ACT that are set up to do this.

01:03And they have special charges that are able to pull power out of the vehicles as well

01:06as the normal charging.

01:09And they've been ready for years now.

01:11And thankfully, these sorts of emergencies only happen very infrequently.

01:15And so this was the first time that since our vehicles have been prepared, that we had

01:20such a major event in the national electricity system.

01:24While it was happening, though, I mean, were you worried under this test that things could

01:28have actually been made worse by them?

01:30No, no, not at all.

01:32We'd done extensive testing, including of the vehicles in our lab at ANU, and we were

01:37very confident that they were going to do exactly what was required, which is to respond

01:42and inject power very quickly.

01:45And how quickly were the cars able to go from charging to discharging?

01:48Yeah, so four of the vehicles were charging at the time that the storm knocked down these

01:52transmission lines, and they within 60 seconds stopped charging and started to discharge

01:58at their full power.

01:59And there were another 12 that were idle at the time of the event, and that also within

02:0360 seconds started to discharge.

02:06Now that 60 seconds is actually due to some regulations around the grid.

02:10In our lab, we were able to see the same vehicles and the same charges provide their power with

02:15under six seconds.

02:17When would all EV models be able to do this?

02:20So currently only Japanese manufactured vehicles, Nissan and Mitsubishi, have the technology

02:25to do this.

02:26But as of next year, there's a new software standard for how vehicles interact with charges.

02:33That's being updated early next year, and that will provide most vehicles the capability

02:39of doing this.

02:40Now, it still requires that the vehicle manufacturer allows this to happen, in particular to provide

02:46a warranty for it to happen, but there's been a lot of talk from major manufacturers

02:51like VW, Ford, BYD, which is the Chinese manufacturer, to provide this service.

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