“V2G services most likely start with fleet operators”

Simon Haverkamp brings extensive experience in the development of charging infrastructure and the integration of energy systems. With a background in electrical engineering from RWTH Aachen University, he has held key roles at Umlaut energy and now at Accenture, focusing on the intersection of mobility and energy.

ADT: At the ChargeTec, Haverkamp will share his insights on what use cases are interesting for V2G and what competitive technologies it must challenge.

Haverkamp: How do you evaluate the long-term economic viability of V2G compared to stationary battery storage? Haverkamp: Bidirectional charging in general has a high potential and therefore a high viability. The question is, which use-cases will be the ones to participate. The use-cases “behind the meter” (V2H), where the vehicle owner directly benefits from the usage of the battery, are very attractive. The idea behind V2G is that the vehicle batteries exist anyway and are not utilized 90% of the day, therefore it is just an additional benefit to use them for grid services. V2G applications where the vehicle is participating in different energy markets, e.g., to stabilize the grid frequency, require a big value chain of parties to enable it, from the single vehicle owners, over aggregators to energy traders. It requires a very large pool of vehicles to guarantee statistically available power and energy. And furthermore, it requires certification of the vehicles as generating units and regulatory adjustments. Stationary storages nowadays are often installed for peak shaving on the grid connection point for big charging parks in multi-megawatt dimensions. 

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So both EVs and those stationary storages are primarily built for a different task and therefore the asset costs of the battery do not need to be covered by the grid services; it is just additional revenue potential. Since they are stationary, much bigger per unit, and operated by a small number of professional players, it is much easier to aggregate them and get the statistically relevant availability, which makes them cheaper in comparison to an aggregation of private cars in the end. The different markets to participate are limited in their size and eventually saturated. So the question I am raising here is if there will be a market left for V2G and which one is it? On the V2G side, the arbitrage use-case, which means using electricity price fluctuations to make profit, is most likely big enough. But this can be partly addressed with smart charging (V1G) already, meaning you charge when prices are low and don’t charge when they are high.

What key market segments are most suitable for early adoption of V2G applications? 

From a use-case perspective, everything behind the meter (V2H) will start first. These use-cases are attractive and relatively easy to implement. The V2G use-cases require prequalification, regulatory adjustments, setup of aggregators, and new business models. This is not a stable field to play for now. From a user perspective, the private vehicle owners are able to use the vehicle battery as home storage or independent power source for emergency (blackout) or vehicle-to-load applications. The V2G services most likely start with fleet operators like school buses first.

How should regulators address the interoperability between mobile and stationary energy systems? 

From the regulatory perspective, this should be no problem. They are two different providers for the same service, and the cheaper one will be awarded the contract. The regulatory hurdles are to enable this kind of service for small aggregated systems at all and to harmonize the requirements among Europe at least. When it comes to microgrid and island use-cases, like a blackout emergency system for your house, there might still be some interoperability issues if different sources of energy have to work together, like the PV system, a home-storage battery, and bidirectional EVs.

Chargetec 2025

27-28 May 2025, SZ Munich Tower