In Canberra, Australia, tens of thousands of homes were left without power during a severe storm. Electric cars came to the city's aid.
Australian National University Senior Research Fellow Dr Bjorn Sturmberg explained that the team has a fleet of 51 electric vehicles across Canberra. They monitor the grid and whenever connected to the grid can quickly inject short bursts of energy to rebalance the system if the national grid loses power rapidly.
This came in handy during a severe storm in February that caused widespread power outages. These “batteries on wheels” were able to provide the reserve necessary for the response services: the vehicles provided electricity for ten minutes. According to the researcher, the February event was the first real test of this system.
“We had a fleet of 51 electric vehicles, which was no match for the largest coal-fired generator in Victoria. Of these (16 vehicles) that were connected, they responded exactly as intended and provided just over 100 kilowatts of electricity back into the grid, helping to rebalance supply and demand in the national grid.”– says Sturmberg in the ABC commentary.
The researcher points out that if the 100,000 electric cars sold in Australia last year could feed power back into the national grid when needed, they would provide roughly the same amount of electricity needed for the entire Australian Capital Territory and New South Wales.
“There could be something like notifications from car manufacturers to all their cars saying, 'Oh, we're having this once every five years event, let's just stop charging for half an hour and then go back to what we were doing.'»– he adds.
Local authorities believe such a system could open up new opportunities for the country, reduce electricity bills and help shut down coal and gas-fired power plants sooner.