Best of LinkedIn: Bidirectional Charging

00:00:00: Brought to you by Thomas Allgaier and Frenis, this edition highlights key LinkedIn posts on the topic of bidirectional charging.

00:00:07: Frenis supports automotive enterprises and consultancies with market and competitive intelligence, so product teams and strategy leaders do have the optimal base for their strategic decisions.

00:00:17: Welcome back to the Deep Dive.

00:00:19: Today we're jumping into bidirectional charging.

00:00:22: It feels like one of those topics that's finally moving from theory into reality.

00:00:26: It's been a really dramatic shift, hasn't it?

00:00:28: We're so far past the point of asking if vehicle to grid is... you know, technically possible.

00:00:33: Oh, yeah.

00:00:34: The conversation now is all about execution.

00:00:36: It's about how we nail the regulations, how we make the economics work, and how we deploy it seamlessly.

00:00:42: Exactly.

00:00:43: So our mission for this deep dive is to cut through all that noise online and really just distill the most valuable insights from the key people talking about this on LinkedIn.

00:00:51: Sure.

00:00:52: We want to give you a really clear snapshot of where this whole market stands as we head into

00:00:58: And to do that, we've organized what we're seeing into four big themes.

00:01:03: First, the breakthroughs in policy and regulation, then how OEMs are actually rolling out products.

00:01:10: After that, the tangible financial case, the grid value, and finally, the big one, the scaling challenge of standards and interoperability.

00:01:18: Let's start with policy then.

00:01:20: Because that's the fuel for any of these business models,

00:01:22: right?

00:01:22: It has to be.

00:01:23: And policy is really starting to position bi-directional charging as a, well, a steering instrument for the whole energy transition.

00:01:29: And we've seen some major action on that front, especially in Germany.

00:01:32: They seem to have cleared a huge financial roadblock.

00:01:35: That German regulatory breakthrough is the headline, for sure.

00:01:39: Their new master plan, all the new legal approvals.

00:01:42: It puts bi-directional charging firmly inside the national energy strategy.

00:01:47: And the biggest win was getting rid of that double burden, wasn't it?

00:01:49: Oh, absolutely.

00:01:50: The industry.

00:01:51: People like Peter Schwierts were celebrating that one.

00:01:53: It was crippling.

00:01:54: That

00:01:54: double taxation.

00:01:55: You charge your car, then you feed power back, and you'd hit twice.

00:01:59: It just decimated any kind of profit margin.

00:02:01: It made no sense.

00:02:02: So getting rid of the network charges and the electricity tax in that specific loop is just an immense step.

00:02:09: So is it a total green light now?

00:02:10: Well, it is, but it's not completely unconditional yet.

00:02:13: We saw Marcus Bollig point out that, at least initially, this tax relief is mainly for users who have their own solar panel.

00:02:21: Some more vehicle-to-home focus to start.

00:02:23: Exactly, a V-to-H with your own solar.

00:02:25: It's a massive step, don't get me wrong, but we still need that clarity for the wider V-to-G market services.

00:02:31: That makes sense.

00:02:32: And looking beyond Germany, Jeff Berger noted that regulators across Europe are exploring these... Sandboxes and frameworks.

00:02:40: Yeah, trying to figure out how to scale V to G without, you know, breaking the grid.

00:02:44: And the key to all of it seems to be price signals.

00:02:46: It has to be.

00:02:47: Christian Clarici, Robin Zalbert, they all emphasize this.

00:02:50: You need dynamic tariffs and clear responsibilities.

00:02:53: Jettberger put it perfectly, without transparent granular price signals from the market.

00:02:59: the vehicle has no idea when its flexibility is most valuable.

00:03:03: And the driver has no incentive to even participate.

00:03:05: Exactly.

00:03:06: And you can see what happens when that's missing.

00:03:08: Walter Bolz pointed out that in places like Austria, the policy debates are just.

00:03:14: They're exposing all the missing pieces and it stalls everything.

00:03:18: Okay, so that takes us neatly into theme two.

00:03:21: the OEMs and the products themselves.

00:03:23: Yeah, flexibility is becoming a core product attribute now.

00:03:26: It's moving out of the R&D lab and straight into the dealership.

00:03:30: And we're seeing these very integrated home packages.

00:03:33: The German premium OEMs seem to be leading the charge, bundling the car, the wallbox, the tariff, the app, the whole thing, the whole ecosystem.

00:03:42: It makes the business case totally plug and play for the customer.

00:03:45: And we have hard numbers now, not just pilot data.

00:03:47: Look at BMW and EON.

00:03:49: They're offering concrete VDG tariffs.

00:03:51: Dr.

00:03:52: Leon Milliciman highlighted that customers can get a bonus of up to seven hundred and twenty euros a year.

00:03:57: Wow.

00:03:57: And what does that mean in real terms?

00:03:59: Well, think about your total cost of ownership.

00:04:01: That's like getting about fourteen thousand kilometers of driving for free.

00:04:05: That's a game changer for a commuter.

00:04:07: It fundamentally changes the TCO calculation.

00:04:10: It really does and Mercedes-Benz is right there with them launching MB charge home in key European markets from twenty twenty six.

00:04:18: They're also pushing the technical limits

00:04:20: with the ELF vehicle.

00:04:21: Yeah, the experimental charging vehicle.

00:04:23: Marcus Schaefer noted they're testing both AC and DC bi-directional charging on it plus these incredibly fast CCS charging speeds up to nine hundred kilowatts.

00:04:34: And what about the US?

00:04:35: The US is on board.

00:04:36: too, mainly with V-to-H to start.

00:04:38: Jigar Shah was talking about GM making V-to-H a default feature on vehicles like the new Silverado EV.

00:04:44: And

00:04:44: of course, Ford's F- one fifty lightning.

00:04:46: Peter Schultz talks about that one a lot.

00:04:48: Can't forget the lightning.

00:04:48: It already has V-to-G and V-to-H capabilities out of the box.

00:04:51: Okay, that financial upside is it's really compelling.

00:04:55: But let's hit the brakes for a second.

00:04:57: What about the battery, the degradation, the warranty questions?

00:05:00: What are manufacturers saying?

00:05:02: That is the critical reality check.

00:05:03: And Matthias Speiter gave some great insight on this specifically about what a CODA is doing for the ENYQ and ELARO OQ.

00:05:11: They put

00:05:12: limits on it.

00:05:13: They have very specific limits.

00:05:15: It's either a ten thousand kilowatt hour discharge volume or four thousand discharge hours, whichever comes first.

00:05:21: And is that a penalty or?

00:05:24: No, not at all.

00:05:25: He clarified it's a technical safeguard.

00:05:27: It's designed purely to protect the battery and frankly to stop people from misusing the car as a, you know, a two hundred and forty seven stationary power storage unit.

00:05:36: So it's

00:05:36: about keeping the car.

00:05:37: A car.

00:05:38: Precisely.

00:05:38: And he put the numbers in perspective.

00:05:40: Ten thousand kilowatt hours is enough to cover about twenty-five percent of a typical household's energy use for ten years.

00:05:46: Okay, so that's actually quite a lot of flexibility within a clear warranty framework.

00:05:50: Exactly.

00:05:50: That provides some much-needed clarity.

00:05:52: Let's transition to our third theme then.

00:05:55: Grid value and business models.

00:05:57: For our audience, this is the so what, right?

00:06:00: Why should you prioritize this now?

00:06:02: Because the financial case works on both sides.

00:06:04: The driver and money.

00:06:05: we mentioned several hundred euros a year.

00:06:08: Peter Schultz said some F- one.

00:06:09: fifty users and pilots have seen up to nine hundred dollars.

00:06:13: And Herbert Dyes mentioned potential cost reductions of over seven hundred euros annually for consumers.

00:06:19: Right, but the system value is.

00:06:22: Well, it's staggering.

00:06:23: Yeah.

00:06:24: Both Dyes and Robin Zalbert referenced these Fraunhofer studies.

00:06:27: They suggest V-to-G could reduce the investment needed for the European grid by over one hundred billion euros between twenty thirty and twenty forty.

00:06:37: A hundred billion.

00:06:38: A hundred billion.

00:06:38: Think about that.

00:06:39: That's money that utilities and regulators don't have to spend building new power plants or upgrading miles of copper.

00:06:46: It turns the entire EV fleet into a resilience tool.

00:06:49: That's the key.

00:06:50: Wolfgang Bremer and Lubremula Jordanova made that point.

00:06:53: It helps prevent blackouts, especially when you think about recent outages in Spain and Portugal.

00:06:57: And the really high value use case here has to be fleets.

00:07:01: Oh, for sure.

00:07:01: Fleets and depots have predictable parking schedules.

00:07:04: They're ideal.

00:07:05: Dennis Heiser discussed the Biflex Industry Project, which is showing just how much commercial fleets can relieve the grid.

00:07:11: And Jemba Berger made the point that Heavy duty vehicles will probably adopt this even faster because the TCO benefits are just so high.

00:07:20: We're seeing huge real world tests of this too.

00:07:23: The Zug Alliance in Switzerland, they're using over eighteen thousand VW group vehicles for things like peak shaving.

00:07:31: Eighteen thousand.

00:07:32: Eighteen

00:07:32: thousand.

00:07:33: And then you've got the Utrecht project in the Netherlands.

00:07:36: Marco Newt shared that just fifty shared.

00:07:38: Renault Fives are already acting as a neighborhood battery.

00:07:41: And

00:07:41: they're getting real results.

00:07:42: Oh yeah.

00:07:42: Sixty-five thousand kilowatt hours discharged in just five months.

00:07:47: They're aiming for a one megawatt reduction in grid congestion with only a hundred and seventy cars.

00:07:52: That's

00:07:53: tangible impact.

00:07:54: And that scale brings us right to our final and maybe the most critical challenge.

00:07:58: Interoperability and standards.

00:08:00: This is the big roadblock to mass adoption.

00:08:03: Steve Latandra put it plainly, didn't he?

00:08:05: Scaling VTG demands multi-party interoperability.

00:08:09: Yeah.

00:08:10: We just can't have another format

00:08:11: war.

00:08:12: We can't.

00:08:13: And the critical standard is ISO-one-five-one-eighteen-twenty.

00:08:17: That's the one for DC bi-directional power flow that Christians of Dari highlighted.

00:08:22: It's the common language.

00:08:23: The Rosetta Stone for the car and the grid.

00:08:25: Exactly.

00:08:26: And Sylvain Giteau warned that if we don't get behind it, we risk repeating the chaos of the early charger rollouts with all the proprietary plugs and apps.

00:08:34: So what's

00:08:35: being done to stop that from happening?

00:08:36: Well, there are collaborative groups like Task-Fifty Three, Bjorn Christensen, and Nicole Weichter have talked about it.

00:08:42: It's an international consortium with big players, VW Group, Treaten, Volvo cars, all actively testing the protocol, finding the bugs, and closing the gaps.

00:08:52: That's

00:08:52: encouraging.

00:08:53: We still have that debate over AC versus DC solutions and the problem of proprietary systems, which Harold Vexelberger mentioned.

00:08:59: That's the issue right now.

00:09:01: Many manufacturers are still relying on their own closed ecosystems.

00:09:04: You have to buy their wallbox.

00:09:07: It

00:09:07: does.

00:09:08: And while it works today, it completely undermines the open, consumer-friendly scaling that V-to-G really needs to succeed as a grid resource.

00:09:17: So to pull this all together, the tech is ready.

00:09:20: Key markets are unlocking the economics, and the business case for both drivers and the grid is solid.

00:09:26: Yeah,

00:09:26: as Dr.

00:09:27: Leo DeMilla, Simon and Leo Bernbaum noted, VTG is fundamentally changing the vehicle from just a passive consumer of energy into a critical, flexible part of the whole system.

00:09:37: If

00:09:37: you enjoy this episode, new episodes drop every two weeks.

00:09:41: Also check out our other editions on electrification and battery technology, future mobility and market evolution for commercial fleet insights.

00:09:48: Before we wrap, let's leave you with one final thought.

00:09:51: We've talked about how the technology and potential are there.

00:09:53: Wolfgang Gremmer suggested all that's really missing is the political will.

00:10:04: Given that the tech and economics are ready, what is the one key piece of cross-sector trust that your organization can build

00:10:09: today,

00:10:10: with a utility, an OEM, or a regulator, to help accelerate V-to-G from just another pilot into standard business practice?

00:10:17: Thank you for taking this deep ride with us.