V2BUILD

The current energy crisis has increased the urgency to decarbonise heat and transport in order to reduce fuel bills, reach emission targets, and increase energy independence. However, as buildings try to decarbonise and integrate more heat pumps and electric vehicles (EVs), many are finding it difficult to secure the additional electricity grid connection capacity required in a timely and low-cost manner. Furthermore many of them are looking into options to limit their exposure to every increasing fuel prices including installing solar PV with battery storage.

While smart charging can reduce some of the costs of integrating electric vehicles, it cannot provide flexibility to other energy uses in the building, in particular heat pumps. Subsequently it cannot increase consumption of onsite PV generation across these uses.

Vehicle-to-Building (V2B) chargers deployed in public or commercial buildings could be a key low cost flexibility solution for buildings, offering significant synergies between decarbonisation of transport and buildings. EVs could discharge their batteries during times of peak demand to provide power to various end uses in the building. This would reduce the reduce buildings' requirements for connection upgrades as well as fuel bills. V2B could have significant advantages compared to other distributed flexibility such as less space requirements and lower cost. In addition, V2B could avoid some of the key issues Vehicle-To-Grid (V2G) chargers are facing such as complexity of aggregation and grid services markets.

However, the commercial model for V2B has not been developed yet. The Vehicle-to-Building User Interface Learning Device (V2BUILD) project aims to support the commercialisation of Vehicle-to-building (V2B) by:

1\. Identifying a set of archetypes of buildings, vehicle fleets and locations, for which V2B could be commercially viable.

2\. Providing decision makers (property managers, DNOs, charge point operators etc.) with a user-friendly software tool that will allow them to quantify the benefits V2B solutions depending on location and building and vehicle fleet characteristics and compare them with other flexibility technology

The consortium includes Element Energy, Wallbox, UKPN, and Nissan to covering the full V2B value chain and bringing together pioneers in bi-directional chargers and EVs and active network operation. The consortium's expertise on V2B charger and vehicle requirements, the value of flexibility in different locations of the grid, and business models capturing this value will enable it to provide deep insight on the most attractive use cases for V2B and help to accelerate the roll out of this technology.