FCA and Engie steam ahead with world’s largest V2G plant

Last year, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and French electric utility company Engie announced a partnership for the development of Vehicle-to-Grid technology and infrastructure, which enables electric cars to share their batteries with the power grid. Today, the Italian car maker says the works at the Mirafiori plant in Turin have begun – in full compliance with the safety standards to contain the COVID-19 epidemic.

The initiative is aimed at two-way interaction between FCA full electric vehicles and the power grid. In addition to recharging the cars, the project will use their batteries to provide grid stabilization services. The vehicle batteries are capable of storing energy and, using the V2G infrastructure, can return it to the grid when needs be. This represents an opportunity to optimize the operating costs of the cars – for the benefit of motorists – and a concrete possibility of contributing to a more sustainable electricity system.

In its final configuration, the project will be capable of supplying up to 25MW of regulatory capacity, making it the largest V2G facility ever built in the world. In addition, by aggregating with other FCA “assets” at Mirafiori – including 5 MW of solar panel capacity – this V2G infrastructure will become a true Virtual Power Plant, indeed the most innovative one in Italy. It will have the capability to provide a high level of resource optimization to the equivalent of 8,500 homes and a wide range of services to the network operator, including ultrafast frequency regulation.

Photo credit: FCA, 2020