This report outlines the project progress during the recruit and build phase. It reflects on charger behaviour and preferences, and participant reasons for undertaking the trial.
Report extract
AGL’s Electric Vehicle Orchestration Trial has received funding from ARENA as part of ARENA’s Advancing Renewables Program. The trial comprises three streams:
- A trial of orchestrated residential EV smart charging comprising 200 participants who will have their charging controlled via a smart charger installed in their homes.
- A trial of two emerging charging technologies:
- Vehicle to grid (V2G) – 50 participants who will have vehicle charging and discharging controlled via a V2G charger installed in their homes.
- Vehicle API charging control – 50 participants who will have their vehicle charging controlled remotely via an API supplied by the vehicle manufacturer.
- 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.
Recruitment of participants for the smart charging and vehicle API streams have been completed. 156 of the 200 smart chargers have been installed, with covid lockdowns in NSW and Victoria slowing the installation rate in the last few months. Smart charging vehicle API aggregation software development is complete. These two trial streams are slightly ahead of schedule and will remain so provided that the covid delayed installations can be completed in Q4 2021.
The TOU control group has also been selected and metering data is being accumulated for this group.
The requirement to obtain certification of V2G chargers to AS4777.2 has delayed the supply of these chargers, which are now expected in early 2022. Technical questions remain regarding interfacing to and controlling the V2G chargers; these are being worked through at present. This stream of the trial is currently slightly behind schedule.