The next time you’re out and you see public transportation in the form of a bus, you might notice something different about it: it’s an electric vehicle, an EV. Which is interesting, because it means it doesn’t guzzle gas, it runs on electricity.
To charge this EV, you could either charge it the way you charge your phone. Or there’s another way called battery swapping. That’s where the battery of EVs gets changed. So, instead of waiting for a battery to charge when it hits 0%, one could switch to a fully-charged battery for their EV in a battery charging station.
But, what could be done about that unused or excess energy? Could it, somehow, be beneficial to the user or the community? Could it actually help a power grid?
Ankit Mittal, Co-Founder & CEO – Sheru, remarks, “Let’s take an EV, let’s say it’s a bus. The batteries are always designed for worst-case situations, wherein if the bus is supposed to do a run for 150 km… But, buses will have a capacity of up to 300 or 350 kilometres, because the batteries are oversized for considering the worst-case situations. So, when a vehicle gets charged, the utilization doesn’t deplete the battery fully. There is energy available in the batteries, even when the vehicle comes to a state of rest.”
Mittal continues, “So, fundamentally, there is always some energy, when it comes to a state of resting that can be utilized to suffice multiple kinds of applications for the grid, be it frequency regulation, voltage regulation, peaking on the grid and more.”
So, it’d be like if your phone was at 30% and that leftover energy could be used to help the power grid do different tasks, like keeping the rhythm of electricity flowing smoothly, making sure the electrical power stays at the right strength and if too many people are using electricity at once, there’s an extra power boost. That could mean that EVs could help ensure a reliable power grid.
Sheru is a cloud energy storage system that is said to solve the problem of energy storage for grid operators that distribute electricity. So, instead of building dedicated infrastructure, electricity could be used by taking the existing capabilities of the EV.
So, does that mean that there could be peer-to-peer trading, where one could sell energy to someone in their vicinity?
According to Mittal, “This has more to do with regulation than the technology’s ability… In many states in the US, consumer choice is already there…you can select your own energy distribution company … Retail choice is prevalent in the US and many countries in Europe… However, in countries like India and many other developing nations, retail choice leaves the masses vulnerable. In India, for example, there is a huge part of the population able to access electricity due to government support. And without that being in place, electricity may become inaccessible for a huge part of the population… So, whether retail choice will become a reality has something to do more with the regulation and the economic state of the country. Once that is in place, then this can be regulated.”
The big headline, though, is: Can EV owners make money with their EVs? Could it be a revenue stream for them?
Mittal states, “Absolutely. We have to think of it as an upgrade to vehicles. For example, when people shifted from cellular phones to smartphones, more applications could be supported. Similarly, when we look at an EV, we have to stop looking at it only as a personal mobility device, but, also, we should look at it as a personal energy device. And in that way, the vehicle actually contributes to a lot more applications than a fundamental mobility use case… There could be enough cost-benefit delivered to an EV owner… wherein they would be able to recover their cost of capital in financing their EV purely from idle time monetization.”
He adds, “This is something that will be rolled out not at a consumer scale, but at an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) scale… So, when you’re buying your car… then, you get an offer, wherein you can avail of 0% finance on the car. If you keep your car plugged in, when it’s idle… The financial benefit will not be directly possible to the consumers; it will happen by being baked into the financial products and via the distribution channels that are making the adoption also possible. So it’s the OEM essentially, whose quality of the vehicle is going to ensure that it would have a significant amount of capacity coming in through there. So, that creates a natural incentive for them, also, to improve customer satisfaction.”
Could it be that one’s EV could end up powering one’s home?
Mittal remarks, “From April 2024 onwards, a Time-of-Day tariff is being implemented by the Ministry of Power, which means every 15-30 minutes, prices will be changing for all categories of customers. So, at that point in time, this can, also, help reduce your electricity bill by optimizing how much power to draw from the battery and how much power to draw from the grid. And in turn, it delivers a great balancing outcome also.”
So, in the evolving mobility and energy landscape, there might be a role for EVs greater than taking someone to and fro; there’s a chance to be propelled into unchartered territories of innovation and sustainability. Can the integration of energy-efficient tech redefine the essence of what it means to “own a vehicle”? Are you ready for your relationship with your car to change?
