Forget V2G. Let’s Get Serious About G2V.

I was on a panel at Electrify Adelaide last week, sat next to Saul Griffith, who was promoting his brilliant new book Plug In. During audience questions, someone asked how important Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) would be in the years ahead.

Saul handed me the mic. I took a deep breath and said:

“This might be unpopular, but I think home batteries will become cheaper and more convenient than a V2G charging system. That means V2G will likely be niche. Why bother plugging your EV to power your house or arbitrage the grid when you can just have an EV and a big home battery?”

This is not a popular point of view in the electrification community. I braced for a polite roasting. Instead, Saul nodded. He said he liked the opinion. His take: V2G should already be standard on every EV, and bi-directional chargers should be cheap. But they’re not. With home battery prices dropping fast, affordable V2G risks arriving too late to matter.

Saul Griffith, Finn Peacock and a panel of speakers at Electrify Adelaide.

The Focus Should Be Daytime EV Charging

Then Saul made a bloody good point. Australia’s immediate focus shouldn’t be running cars backwards into the grid. It should be ensuring as many EVs as possible can charge when the sun is shining. Too many electric cars sit idle all day without access to a charger, only to be plugged in during the evening peak or overnight. That’s the most pressing problem right now, and it’s so easy to fix.

I agree with Saul. The danger of obsessing over the “perfect” solution: V2G, bi-directional chargers, regulatory approvals, new standards, is we risk overlooking the good solution that’s already here. Mass provision of one-way charging is cheap, simple, and proven. Put chargers where cars sit during daylight hours, and you soak up solar that would otherwise be wasted. With cars sitting idle for hours at a time, they don’t even have to be particularly fast chargers. It doesn’t solve everything, but it solves a lot. And it can be rolled out now.

I turned to Saul and quipped: “So you are promoting G2V!”

Saul laughed: “Yeah, G2V! I knew there was a reason I like this guy.”

That made this engineer’s day. Saul’s a rock star in electrification.

Put Chargers Where They Are Needed

So let’s not let perfect get in the way of good. Instead of holding out for affordable, widespread V2G, let’s simply roll out a ton of basic chargers where cars are actually parked during the day. Let’s get serious about G2V right here, right now.

Phase Shift is a weekly opinion column by SolarQuotes founder Finn Peacock. Subscribe to SolarQuotes’ free newsletter to get it emailed to your inbox each week along with our other home electrification coverage.