Updated on 24/05/22 by Jess_OVO
Our Vehicle-to-Grid trial has now moved on to the next phase and is no longer accepting new participants.
Check out OVO Drive our new Electric Vehicle (EV) tariff here. Not invested in an EV yet? Find out what our current EV owners would recommend when researching EV options!
I had my V2G installed yesterday so it's been less than 24 hours but here's what happened.
The guys (5 of them) turned up on time and were really nice, and after a cup of tea they started work.
As you can see there is a lot of kit and fortunately it didn't rain.
A word of warning, these chaps can drink tea at an astonishing rate, make sure you have lots of tea bags and a reliable kettle ☺.
The install took about 6 hours in total and they cleared away all the rubbish and left the place clean and tidy. Once the hardware had been installed and double checked for safety etc it was time for the big switch on.
There seemed to be a communication problem between my unit and V2G control but once that was sorted and the latest firmware downloaded we were ready to plug the car in, no bang or bright flash so I assumed all was good.
The car was charging (I made sure it was at 50%ish before the install) and the V2G box started flashing, I was then given a tutorial and demonstration of how the box works and what the buttons do, seems to me that white lights are good, red lights bad. Then a quick tutorial on how to isolate the V2G if the worst should happen and that was that.
As you can see the V2G box is not small compared to a normal type 2 charger.
I then had to access the "App" but it's really a website/portal, I am having problems with that as everytime I log out it wont let me back in until I changed my password, I am waiting for a call back to get this sorted.
But apart from that everything seems to be working as it should.
This morning my car is sitting at 100% SOC and I have exported some electricity to the grid.
But the best bit is this.........
Last night our home wasn't using any power from the grid the car was powering everything.
We had TV, lights etc on as normal, we even boiled the kettle, the car powered it all and we were exporting 3.4 kw to the grid for which we get paid for.
From what I can tell this lasted for 3 hours before the charger went back to "idle" mode (doing nothing) until in the early hours when it topped the car back up.
It has been less than 24hrs so everything is new and it will take a few days to get up to speed but first impressions are good but I won't know what savings I'm making until the end of the month, it's the car powering the house savings plus the export tariff compared to the cost of filling the battery that concerns me.
I would like to say a big thank you to the guys for all their hard work yesterday and to OVO for picking me for this trial.
I will update you in a week or so to let you know how it's all going.
If you have any questions regarding installation or V2G please ask and I'll do my best to answer them.
Cheers for now, Del.
