As one of the largest vehicle-to-grid demonstration projects globally, this project featured 21 bi-directional chargers and Nissan LEAF vehicles in three commercial office buildings in downtown Toronto. This showcase system uses an electric vehicle and energy storage system to reduce customers’ demand charges.
Peak Power also installed a battery energy storage system in one of the commercial office buildings, making it one of the first sites globally to have a battery and bi-directional EV charger. This allowed these distributed energy resources to operate in tandem to maximize economic results for the building. Peak Drive is operated in partnership with the Canadian Federal Government and Nissan.
This pilot project was planned to solve multiple objectives within downtown commercial office buildings. Primarily, the goal was to reduce the buildings’ energy bills with targeted discharging of the Nissan Leaf EV batteries. By exporting electricity from their batteries, the cars reduce overall facility demand from the grid during Global Adjustment events.
The project also aimed to combine an energy-based use case with a mobility use case and provide valuable data – like driving patterns and charging behaviour – to build out Peak Power’s foundational mobile energy storage technology. Although the cars do not feed any electricity directly into the grid, they are, in fact, virtual power plants on wheels.
This pilot successfully tested a future state where EVs can respond to grid peak events, dispatching energy and, in turn, mitigating the need for costly infrastructure development. Soon, this use case for EVs will be possible across US electricity markets as FERC Order 2222 takes effect.
More and more, electric vehicle models are being released that show the capability of electric vehicles to be used as energy assets. Ford is piloting how the F-150 Lightning can be used as a backup source of power in outages. The 2024 Chevy Silverado is slated to be offering bi-directional charging capabilities as GM explores vehicle-to-grid (V2G) and virtual power plant (VPP) use cases.
The Peak Drive pilot project was launched at a point that no one could have foreseen – at the outset of the COVID pandemic. That brought with it some unique challenges, including, a freeze to the ICI program and changes to Global Adjustment (GA) in Ontario.
However, we were able to claim some big wins. We accurately predicted every GA event, we measured a 90% driver participation rate, and we collected data to show a 97% vehicle availability to participate in coincident peak events.
Contact us about your project needs, or if you have a question about your current energy storage asset optimization.
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