AGL completed a trial of 200 orchestrated residential electric vehicles having their charging controlled via a smart charger installed in their homes. Trial participants had their charging controlled via a smart charger installed in their homes. The objective of the trial was to assess the value of controlled charging as a distributed energy resource.
Report extract
AGL’s Electric Vehicle Orchestration Trial has received funding from ARENA as part of ARENA’s Advancing Renewables Program. The trial comprised three streams:
- A trial of orchestrated residential electric vehicle (EV) smart charging with 200 participants having their charging controlled via a smart charger installed in their homes.
- A trial of two emerging charging technologies – vehicle Application Programming Interface (API) charging control (100 vehicles) and Vehicle to Grid (V2G).
- A control group of 100 customers on a time-of-use (TOU) tariff to assess the effectiveness of a tariffication incentive against that of firm charging control.
There were no major issues encountered building and operating the smart charger and vehicle API streams of the trial. The test program was implemented successfully and included scheduled and ad-hoc charging control. A comprehensive program of customer research was undertaken during the trial to gauge customer reaction to the charging control and their attitudes towards the technology.