Volvo establishes a business unit for vehicle-to-grid research

Volvo Cars has established the Energy Solutions business unit, through which the company aims to research bi-directional charging applications. For example, the company wants to see whether an EV can supply electricity back to the energy grid and thus function as a home battery.

Volvo Cars Energy Solutions’ first pilot program starts in Sweden, where the company wants to test v2g with the local energy grid company. Customers must be able to supply energy back to the grid with a ‘low-priced’ AC wall box. This will happen with the Volvo EX90, Volvo’s electric top model and the first Volvo to have the necessary hardware for bidirectional charging. The software for bi-directional charging should come to the EX90 ‘over time’. Production of the EX90 will start in the first half of 2024.

With v2g, green energy could be stored in the battery of a car, which is returned to the grid when less sustainable energy is available. In addition to V2G, the business unit also wants to look at V2H, where energy is returned to the home, and V2L. With v2l there is a socket on the inside or outside of the car, which can be used to power camping gear or vacuum cleaners, for example. V2l can also be used to charge other cars. This form of bidirectional charging is already used on some car models.

Volvo says the average daily journey of a Volvo car uses less than 10kWh and that 90 percent of all daily journeys, including non-Volvos, use less than 20kWh. The EX90 has a 111kWh battery, which Volvo says can also be used for other purposes. The car manufacturer expects that within a few years all Volvo cars will have a combined battery capacity of 50GWh.

Volvo EX90