Nissan and OVO pool knowledge

Nissan and leading UK energy technology company OVO have announced a new collaboration to accelerate the adoption of home battery storage in the UK.

The new offering is the first of its kind in the UK and will combine VNet, OVO’s intelligent energy technology, with Nissan’s xStorage Home system.

Building from this collaboration, OVO plans to launch OVO SolarStore, the company’s first battery storage offering, allowing customers with solar households to purchase an xStorage Home system direct from OVO.

Alex Smith, managing director at Nissan Motor (GB), said, ‘At Nissan, we are pioneering mobility solutions that go beyond the car, working with partners to transform our cities, and offer cleaner, greener energy solutions. I am delighted to announce this landmark collaboration with OVO Energy– we believe this could be the start of something revolutionary; combining the clean power of our all-electric Nissan LEAF, with greater access to renewable energy, for everyone.’

The two companies have also announced their intention to launch a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) offering for private customers buying the new Nissan LEAF from January 2018 – which will allow customers to sell energy to the grid at peak times.

Stephen Fitzpatrick, OVO CEO, said, ‘Electric vehicles are fast becoming a mainstream option for drivers and solve many of the challenges facing our cities. We believe that they have an integral part to play in the twenty-first century power grid and accelerating decarbonisation and mobility. We’re delighted that we can now offer such a compelling incentive to customers who are generating their own clean power, providing a truly sustainable alternative to the traditional energy model.’

V2G technology allows electric vehicles to be fully integrated into the electricity grid and will likely help the grid maximise the use of renewables in the energy system.

The V2G offering will work by allowing Nissan EV owners to connect to the grid to charge at low-demand, cheap tariff periods. They can then use the electricity stored in the vehicle’s battery at home and at work when costs are higher, or even feed electricity back to the grid which could generate revenue for the EV owner. OVO plans to create special tariffs to reward customers for this interaction with the grid.

In a future where all vehicles on UK roads are electric, V2G technology could generate a virtual power plant of up to 200 GW. This energy capacity is more than double the peak requirement on the UK grid.

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