£1.3M for battery storage research from EVs to support the national grid – why not to boost synthetic fuel research, production and distribution?

A group of British companies has received a significant sum of £1,344,552 from the government to investigate the potential for using electric vehicle (EV) batteries to regulate peaks in supply and demand on the UK’s electricity grid. 3ti, a provider of solar car parks (SCPs) in the UK, is spearheading this venture in collaboration with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and Innovate UK. The project aims to incorporate two way DC charging and related power management systems into a portable solar car park and EV charging hub. Dubbed as the ‘V2X FastHub’, this project paves the way for future energy security by utilizing EV batteries as assets to address issues caused by intermittent renewable energy sources.

So when you bought your EV, did you realise that you’ll be a power storage hub for the grid?! There is also the option for the government to start charging more for your EV charging usage down the line so when they lose millions from fuel taxes, we’re next on the EV charging!

It’s interesting as we don’t have enough power on the grid now given the grid paid customers in certain areas in recent months not to use their cooker etc when coming home to help manage the peak demand. So if everyone went electric today, what would happen?

There hasn’t been the investment by successive governments on our national grid and in the not to distant future you will charge your car and have power taken back to help manage the peak demand on the grid so everyone can have their cup of tea or coffee in the morning or put the oven on and have a shower.

So whilst it is inevitable we need better solutions to our fuel needs, with synthetic fuels available on the market that could virtually replace petrol without issue, why isn’t £1.3M or more being given to help build a better nationwide network and increase production?

If we were to replace our petrol with synthetic fuels, the 1.6 billion cars on the planet would be virtually carbon neutral over night. No demand on the national grid to charge batteries where there is a crumbling infrastructure and a faster impact on the invornment.

I applaud the efforts to make us greener – we’re doing carbon off-setting for all our shows, taking the carbon neutral work of our show operations of the last 2 years to visitors and exhibitors to make our shows carbon neutral from 2024 onwards. More effort is needed though to explore the genuine alternatives to EV that can have an almost immediate and bigger environmental impact. We need a more balanced approach from Governments, not just in the UK, to support wider investigations and stop just focusing on EV as the one-stop solution that it is not.