Octopus Energy Group and National Grid ESO have announced the first successful integration of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology, using a test environment of the balancing mechanism, the primary tool used by National Grid ESO to balance Great Britain’s electricity system in real-time.

This is the first time that V2G technology has been demonstrated in Great Britain to show that electric vehicles (EVs) can receive a direct signal from the ESO to support system balancing.

According to Octopus Energy, it marks a major turning point in electricity supply and means that in the future, consumers could play a direct role in balancing the national transmission system through their EVs.

In a series of test runs in August 2022, Octopus charged and discharged the batteries of up to 20 electric cars from participating customers at times of grid imbalance.

These demonstrated the potential benefit of V2G charging – an hour of a million EVs exporting to the grid could generate the same amount of power as 5,500 onshore wind turbines.

Jake Rigg, Corporate Affairs Director, National Grid ESO, stated on the demonstration: “Vehicle-to-grid technology opens the door for everyone to engage in our electricity system, in a way that we can all benefit from.

“The next steps for us are to take these learnings and work with industry on how we develop and deploy a balancing mechanism service for V2G.

“The trial findings will also influence future innovation projects, including the CrowdFlex project we are currently developing with industry, to establish additional routes for consumer engagement in electricity networks.”

According to Octopus Energy, when the service is up and running, consumers could save cash off their energy bills as their car battery is used as a balancing device, contributing to reduced balancing costs across the network, which will help to reduce bills for all energy consumers.

Octopus Energy Group’s Kraken platform works in the background to match this customer schedule with grid signals to provide flexibility as a service and charging to customers.

Separate analysis from Octopus Energy’s EV arm shows that if the trial results were extrapolated across a whole year, the EVs could realise a profit of around ￡62 million ($73.3 million) annually while saving non-participating customers money through grid balancing cost reductions.

The announcement comes in as the bills crisis in the UK, as reported by Smart Energy Finances Weekly, reaches a worrying state for consumers, who face the consequences of a price cap in excess of ￡4,200 ($4,963) come January, as well as the question of how best to be energy efficient and save on bills.

And, according to Octopus Energy, V2G participants could realise a potential saving of up to ￡840 ($993) annually.