For France, the vehicle-to-grid (V2G) offer, for which Renault’s subsidiary Mobilize and The Mobility House are responsible, is now ready for the market.
Car batteries are thus ‘intelligently integrated into the electricity grid for the first time in a commercial and scalable product for end customers’, as the Munich-based company puts it.
By feeding electricity back into the grid and the aggregated marketing of this power reserve, vehicle owners will be able to ‘charge and drive for free’, as it were, because their car earns money by feeding energy back into the grid.
The Renault Group’s new Renault 5 models and the Alpine A290, which has recently been available to order, are equipped accordingly.
Other prerequisites are the AC charging station PowerBox Verso, which is designed for bidirectional charging, and the energy contract Mobilize Power, for which The Mobility House is responsible.
Meanwhile, the roll-out will not stop at France’s borders: “The UK will follow in 2025, while Germany continues to evaluate and develop its approach to implementing V2G technology,” says The Mobility House.
The Munich-based company is contributing its expertise and technology components to the cooperation with Renault in order to bundle the vehicle batteries, trade the charging energy on the markets, provide grid services – ‘and allow customers to benefit from this with an innovative energy tariff’, as the company puts it.
Customers determine the minimum and maximum charge level of the car and other parameters themselves using an app.
With regard to the scepticism heard that the battery could age prematurely due to the increased charging and discharging processes with V2G, The Mobility House is reassuring: there are no ‘visible wear and tear effects on the battery’ for customers.
In addition, “The warranty for the battery is provided by Renault.”
When asked why things can now get underway in France but not yet in other countries, The Mobility House provides the following explanation:
“Compared to Germany, France and the UK offer significantly better regulatory framework conditions for the expansion of bidirectional charging.’
This is mainly due to the following factors: ‘supportive regulation, smart meter expansion and digitalisation.”
France is therefore further ahead than Germany when it comes to regulation.
According to the Munich-based company, the parties involved recognise the added value of bidirectional charging and are committed to pragmatic solutions.
In addition, smart meters and efficient registration processes are available across the board, meaning that an important building block for V2G is already in place for end customers.
The fact that there is only one major distribution grid operator in France, Enedis, plays a major role here.
