TenneT and sonnen have announced that they’ve powered the German grid with electric cars. TenneT is a top electricity network operator in Europe, and sonnen produces and manages stationary battery storage systems. Working together, TenneT tapped into the electricity stored in electric car batteries that are part of the sonnenCommunity. It did so when there were short-term fluctuations in the electricity supply on the grid, using the car batteries to absorb those short-term fluctuations.
Note that there isn’t a lot of back and forth, in and out — the batteries are not being put under harsh conditions. “This is achieved solely via an intelligent charging process, there is no additional wear and tear on the vehicle batteries due to discharging.” You might think that under this system you could have a problem with TenneT sucking power out of your car when you are going to need your car to be charged. That wouldn’t be very clever, would it? That’s why one of the first steps in the program is to indicate when you will want to use your car.
“We are on the verge of developing a renewable energy ecosystem that can be compared to the dawn of the internet age. Assets that have been operating in isolation until now are networked with each other and thus develop their full potential. The next stage of the energy transition is about ensuring that the energy from solar or wind power is always in the right place at the right time,” says Oliver Koch, CEO of sonnen.