Last month Gridworks urged the Department of Energy to continue the work of Vehicle Grid Integration, identifying 10 specific gaps that need to be filled to plug-in millions of new electric vehicles at the least cost and emissions.
Gridworks applauds the DOE for calling the question on VGI, a target rich environment in need of national leadership. Our recommendations stem from our facilitation of the California Joint Agency VGI Working Group, which published its Final Report in 2020. That Working Group included over 80 participating organizations spanning the industry, easily the most comprehensive assessment of VGI opportunities and challenges to date.
Our recommended 10 gaps distill the 92 policy recommendations of the VGI Working Group, keying in on the main barriers to VGI.
The 10 gaps are:
Submetering and separate EV service metering issues and constraints relevant to integration of VGI resources with other behind-the-meter DER resources like solar and energy management systems.
Demand response programs suited for VGI participation and directly addressing the existing barriers to VGI participation in DR programs.
Further programmatic incentives for creating value streams for VGI, beyond setting time- of-use and/or dynamic rates.
Support for bidirectional (V2G and V2B) applications broadly that can create value now, both exporting and non-exporting.
Building codes (i.e., parking facilities) that ease charging infrastructure.
Approaches for automated load management that can reduce needs for upgrading distribution grids while serving growing EV loads.
Lack of off-the-shelf solutions for backup and resiliency during power outages.
Lack of consistency in applying open standards (i.e., communication).
Lack of attention to multi-use applications and “value stacking.”
Lack of information and clear value propositions for many if not most of the use cases, which could benefit from further pilot and demonstration experience.
Addressing these gaps will take focus, experience, work, and a really good facilitator. Gridworks can help you with that. If you share our commitment to VGI, please be in touch. We’d love to discuss opportunities to work together.
