World Premiere: V2X Suisse Successfully Prequalified

World premiere: The “V2X Suisse” project successfully demonstrates compliance with Swissgrid’s technical prequalification requirements for ancillary services using a decentralized fleet of bidirectionally charging electric vehicles in a car-sharing pool with CCS Combo 2 standard connectors.

In June 2023, the V2X Suisse project reached a significant milestone by aggregating the flexibility of a decentralized fleet of bidirectionally charging electric vehicles (EVs) and successfully meeting the technical requirements of Swissgrid, Switzerland’s transmission system operator (TSO), for ancillary services. The services provided are Frequency Containment Reserves (FCR) and automatic Frequency Restoration Reserves (aFRR). These services are used by the TSO to balance the power grid as demand and generation constantly fluctuate. FCR is the first measure for grid stabilization, requiring participants to respond to frequency deviations within 2 seconds. aFRR is the second step, ensuring that deviations are corrected. These services help maintain the frequency of the European grid stable at 50 Hz.

The V2X Suisse project aims to demonstrate the technical feasibility and economic potential of V2G technology for providing ancillary services through a pool of electric vehicles. It consists of a fleet of 50 Honda e electric vehicles, each of which is bidirectional and connected to a DC charging station. These vehicles are distributed across 40 different locations in Switzerland. The consortium is led by the car-sharing company Mobility and includes car manufacturer Honda, software developer sun2wheel, charging station developer EVTEC, aggregator tiko, and novatlantis as scientific advisor. The project is supported by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE).

V2G technology enables real-time control of the charging and discharging process of EVs when they are parked and not in use, to ensure grid stability during periods of high demand or fluctuating energy supply. It takes into account the needs of shared EV users and ensures that vehicles are charged and ready for use when customers need them.

The successful fulfillment of Swissgrid’s technical requirements is a world premiere, as it was achieved with a car-sharing pool, without local aggregator hardware, using only cloud-to-cloud connectivity and the European plug standard CCS Combo 2. This remarkable achievement underscores the potential of V2G technology to support the transition to a more sustainable and resilient energy infrastructure.

Voices from the Project Consortium

“We are thrilled to finally see that V2G works technically not only as a grid-friendly solution for local DSOs or local self-consumption communities, but also for the demanding system-friendly ancillary services for TSOs.” — Reto Meier, Project Manager V2X Suisse at Mobility

“The integration of EV flexibility, including V2G, is a cornerstone of tiko’s strategy. We are pleased to have achieved this demanding technical milestone.” — Frédéric Gastaldo, Founder and CEO of tiko Energy Solutions

“We are proud that our user-centric approach to load management systems contributed to the success of V2X Suisse.” — Sandro Schopfer, Co-Founder and CTO at sun2wheel

“The V2X Suisse project demonstrates that V2G technology with the CCS standard can contribute to grid stability through participation in ancillary services.” — Serge Wisselmann, Head of Ancillary Services & Analytics at Swissgrid