An important milestone on the road to emission-free energy and mobility has been achieved by technology company The
Mobility House (TMH), energy supplier Enervie, transmission system operator Amprion and car maker Nissan (www.nissan-global.com).

With the Nissan Leaf and an innovative charging and energy management technology, the project partners have now succeeded in qualifying an electric car for all the TSO (Transmission System Operators) regulatory requirements for primary power regulation.

This means that the car can be integrated as ‘a regulating reserve’ for the German electricity grid — a breakthrough in establishing Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology in Germany.

To meet the need for a transition to decentralised energy generation from renewable sources in Germany, new and innovative solutions for stabilising the electricity grid are necessary; the increasing use of renewable energy leads to fluctuations in the grid, which must be initially balanced by primary regulation capable of preventing impending power cuts “at a second’s notice”.

Electric cars such as the Nissan Leaf, with integrated bi-directional charging technology, could play an important part in this.

With its CHAdeMO charging connector, the Leaf can not only extract power from the grid and store it in its traction battery but also feed power back — the V2G concept.

This is the basis for its integration into the pilot project at the Enervie site in Hagen, Germany.

In combination with charging and energy management technology from TMH, the charging and discharging processes can be controlled and monitored.

Guillaume Pelletreau, managing director of Nissan Centre Europe, said: “We strongly believe in an emission-free future, so we are very proud that the Nissan Leaf has been deemed suitable for stabilising grid frequencies. Leaf batteries could make an important contribution to energy transition in Germany and a sustainable future.”