Mercedes and The Mobility House to roll out V2G charging at home
The two German companies are aiming for a Europe-wide cooperation to intelligently connect Mercedes-Benz electric cars with the European grids. The partnership explicitly relates not only to unidirectional charging offers (V1G), which means charging the car when renewable energy is most abundant, but also to bidirectional charging (V2G), which enables electric car owners to feed energy back in, to support the grid and earn money doing so. V1G and V2G enable more renewable energy to be utilised by the grid by sucking up excess capacity when the sun shines and wind blows, and storing energy and feeding it back when grid demand is highest.
The Mobility House has long been exploring the intersection of the mobility and energy sectors and, beyond the new partnership with Mercedes, is already cooperating with Renault on V2G, among others.
Mercedes and The Mobility House have already collaborated on several joint projects. The German automotive giant says that The Mobility House is contributing its core competencies in the integration, aggregation and marketing of electric vehicle batteries in energy markets to this strategic partnership. The manufacturer states that it wants to use its “technology leadership in the vehicle sector” to offer customers a comprehensive end-to-end solution at home.
The introduction of the V1G and V2G solutions will be synchronised with the launch of the new generation of electric vehicles from Mercedes. The first representative of this new generation is the upcoming electric CLA, which is based on Mercedes’ new MMA platform and was recently launched on the German market for upwards of 55,858 euros.
At the world premiere in March, Mercedes already announced that the CLA could serve as a home electricity storage unit with V2G ability. The prerequisite is an appropriate DC charger – and explicitly not an AC charger. We recently discussed why this is the case with Frank Spennemann, Senior Manager Charging Solutions Energy at Mercedes-Benz, who told us about Mercedes’ approach to V2G technology.
At the world premiere of the CLA, Mercedes also announced that the bidirectional charging function would be made available “at a later date after market launch with the help of an over-the-air update” – depending on market-specific conditions in terms of legislation and the requirements of energy suppliers. The framework conditions for bidirectional charging in Europe vary greatly from country to country. In the current announcement, Mercedes therefore also speaks of a “gradual” introduction of its smart charging services.
“The intelligent integration of electric vehicles into the energy system is the key to a sustainable and economical mobility future,” says Thomas Raffeiner, CEO of The Mobility House. “Together with Mercedes-Benz, we are taking vehicle-to-grid technology from vision to reality – and making emission-free and cost-efficient electromobility a reality.”
The two companies have been working together in the field of stationary energy storage systems since 2016. They describe one of their greatest joint successes as having connected one of the largest second-life battery storage systems to the grid as part of the Enbase Power GmbH joint venture.
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