BC Hydro is announced Canada’s first vehicle-to-grid pilot project for medium and heavy-duty vehicles that will enable electricity to be pushed back to the grid from the battery of an electric vehicle.
As the electric vehicle market grows, vehicle-to-grid technology can offer several exciting benefits including the ability to aid in emergency response by providing power to critical infrastructure such as schools, community centres, hospitals, and police and fire departments, during major storms or natural disasters. This technology offers a cleaner and more flexible alternative to diesel generators, and delivering backup energy to meet peak demand in extreme heat or cold events.
The bidirectional charging trial project for medium-sized vehicles such as buses, and heavy-duty vehicles like transport trucks, is the first of its kind in the province, and the country. Compared to other back-up generation, these medium-sized vehicles can be mobilized much faster than traditional sources like diesel generators and they are far cleaner.
BC Hydro has successfully tested a 60-kilowatt charger connecting a Lion Electric school bus from Lynch Bus Lines.The typical bus battery holds 66 kilowatts of electricity – or enough to power 24 single family electrically-heated homes for almost two hours.
While vehicle-to-grid technology is still in the trial stage in Canada, it has been used successfully in the United States and Europe. Today, B.C. has thousands buses on its roads. If 1,000 buses were converted to electric, the buses could power 24,000 homes for two hours.
