V2Street

40% of UK population live in urban environments without access to off-street parking, so cannot install home Electric Vehicle (EV) chargers. If these people cannot access on-street charging infrastructure, we will not hit national targets for EV uptake and electrification of transport.

Charging infrastructure suffers from a chicken-and-egg problem: people won't buy EVs if they cannot see that infrastructure is available, and local authorities won't install infrastructure if they cannot see demand for EVs. V2Street explores routes to break this deadlock by developing a novel consumer value proposition that uses flexibility in V2G-enabled charging to provide demand side response (DSR) services to the energy system.

We estimate V2G can provide significantly more revenue from these services than unidirectional charging. Our objectives are to use this value stream to create an integrated consumer proposition. Residual revenue from DSR services then supports investment in charging infrastructure.

To develop this integrated proposition, we will define a range of consumer propositions and business models based on modelling of revenue that DSR flexibility can create. We will test these propositions with consumers, analyse their impacts on energy system and urban infrastructure, and develop prototypes of an integrated chargepoint-EV-cloud system to deliver the services. We will then undertake a second, focused phase of consumer research using these prototypes. This will provide robust data on technical performance and consumer acceptance, positioning us to develop future, larger-scale trials.

V2Street's vision is to break the chicken-and-egg deadlock, triggering a "virtuous circle" of infrastructure investment and EV uptake. V2Street will give confidence to energy system stakeholders (suppliers, distribution network operators (DNOs), National Grid) to develop service requirements that exploit the flexibility of V2G. This in turn will give confidence to participants in chargepoint supply chains to invest in charging infrastructure.

The V2Street consortium covers two complete supply chains, from vehicle manufacturer to chargepoint operator, local authority and consumer, and from consumer to energy flexibility aggregator, DNO and supplier. It combines highly innovative SMEs at key points in the supply chains with large companies with the depth of resources needed to support exploitation at scale. Major academic institutions ensure we gather robust consumer research and solid evidence to frame transport and energy policy to address this key challenge to EV uptake.