Renault and A1 test V2L for emergency power supply to mobile phone masts

Vehicle-to-Load (V2L) technology is one example of bidirectional charging and can be used, for example, to charge power tools from the high-voltage battery of electric vehicles. Another area of application for V2L is emergency power supply, and in Austria, this is now being tested using a mobile phone grid antenna as an example.

Mobile phone provider A1 has teamed up with Renault Austria for the pilot project. Near Vienna, both companies and the municipality of Raasdorf are demonstrating how electric vehicles can help secure critical infrastructure. For the first time, a mobile phone mast is being made V2L-capable so that it remains operational even in the event of a major power failure. This is helpful for emergency communications, among other things.

“In an emergency, an electric car can be used as a mobile power bank to keep operations going for longer,” says Christian Zeindlhofer, Head of Risk and Resilience Management at A1, explaining the advantage of V2L. In the project, the V2L-enabled Renault 5 E-Tech Electric and Renault 4 E-Tech Electric models are becoming potential emergency power generators for A1’s mobile phone stations.

A1 CTO further communicated that it aims to form a kind of crowdsourced nationwide network of mobile energy storage systems: “In an emergency, the batteries in these vehicles can be used specifically to protect and maintain critical infrastructure such as mobile phone masts, which are particularly at risk in the event of a blackout.”

Even though this is initially only a regionally limited project by A1, Renault Austria and the municipality of Raasdorf, the approach is much more significant and could be used throughout Austria, Europe and even around the world in the future. This is because more and more electric cars are V2L-capable. In an emergency, the batteries of such vehicles can be used specifically to protect and maintain critical infrastructure such as mobile phone masts, which are particularly at risk in the event of a blackout. If necessary, the electric vehicles feed energy from their batteries directly into the mobile phone station.

The use of electric cars in emergency power supply is a flexible system and usually CO2-free, provided that the electric car batteries have been charged with green electricity as usual. Until now, mobile phone stations could usually only be kept operational during blackouts with diesel-powered emergency generators.

heise.de

This article was first published by Florian Treiß for electrive’s German edition.