Rewarding drivers for grid support
15 May 2018UK “smart battery company” Moixa reports that it has recently joined a consortium called V2GB (Vehicle to Grid Britain) that is looking at ways to reward drivers who use their electric vehicle batteries to support the grid. The consortium (which also includes National Grid, Western Power Distribution and Nissan) aims to develop driver-centred business models to support a rapid roll-out of vehicle-to-grid technologies, “allowing millions of electric car batteries to become a vital part of the UK energy system.”
Moixa says its GridShare platform is already managing flows of energy to and from EV batteries and aggregating them to function as a virtual power plant, supporting the energy network. The platform uses machine learning to profile drivers’ patterns of behaviour so that cars always have sufficient power for their needs. Moixa says it is currently the only company paying UK customers to provide their battery capacity in support of the grid, paying a minimum of £50 a year.
Itochu partnership
Moixa has recently entered into a strategic partnership with Itochu Corporation to market the GridShare platform, enabling its launch into the rapidly growing Japanese battery market. Itochu will also invest £5 million in Moixa.
Itochu has sold over 6000 “Smart Star” home battery systems in Japan and will install GridShare as standard by the summer of 2018. The technology is designed to save customers money by using artificial intelligence to optimise the performance of their battery based on their patterns of behaviour, the weather conditions and market prices.
Itochu is also a major supplier of battery chemistry to leading energy storage brands, and will work with Moixa to promote GridShare to address the growing market for battery management services.
Japan had over 125 000 energy storage systems in 2016, and Moixa and Itochu forecast the number will exceed 500 000 by 2020. It also has the world’s third largest fleet of electric vehicles. GridShare optimises the performance of batteries and can also manage large fleets of devices to help support solar generation, control vehicle charging and deliver services to the electricity grid.
The Itochu partnership follows investment in Moixa last year by Tokyo Electric Power Company, and a partnership with Hitachi to develop a smart energy grid in the Isles of Scilly.
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