BMW has successfully tried to use electric vehicles to return to the grid in California.

BMW announced the first phase of the ChargeForward project and announced the official launch of the second phase of the project.

Last year, BMW launched an interesting experimental project in California called "ChargeForward." The project aims to eliminate the grid load during peak hours, and recruits 100 consumers in California who are both BMW i3 owners and PG&E (a California power company) grid company, exploring ways to ease the delay by charging. The possibility of grid pressure.

This week, BMW announced the results of the first phase of the project and announced the official launch of the second phase of the project, inviting more BMW i3 owners in California to participate in the experiment, while extending the duration of the project.

The implementation of this project is also very simple: all the car owners involved in the project will be able to “pay off” the grid by delaying the time that i3 starts charging under the scheduling and guidance of PG&E grid company. The charging delay is controlled at the longest. Within hours. That is, when PG&E finds that the power consumption is increasing and the grid load is increasing, it will communicate with the BMW server in real time. After receiving the information, BMW will adjust and control the i3 vehicles participating in the project to delay charging and start to relieve the grid pressure.

Of course, users participating in the project will receive corresponding compensation. In the first phase of the project, all participating car owners will receive a $1,000 credit card in a unified manner. At the same time, depending on the number of participations and effects, the owner can also receive an additional bonus of up to $540. However, in the second phase of the project, BMW reduced the amount of the award, and it is estimated that the reward is “too rich”.

If the user urgently needs to charge the vehicle, he can also withdraw from the project at any time. In operation, only opt out can be selected in the mobile application; however, if the vehicle is not rushed to charge, the charger can be plugged in first. At the same time, the project is started in the APP, at which time the vehicle will be charged on demand according to the load status of the grid, the dispatch of PG&E and the distribution of BMW.

BMW also announced project and survey data from July 2015 to October 2016. It seems that most users are satisfied. The main results are as follows:

The 100 BMW i3 owners (also PG&E grid users) in the San Francisco Bay Area are basically involved in this project;

92% of the participants said they were “very satisfied” with this project, and 86% of the participants expressed their willingness to “recommend this project” to relatives and friends.

During July 2015, in October 2016, a total of 192 vehicles were mobilized to delay charging to alleviate the high load state of the grid;

By October 2016, when the grid needed to be decompressed, BMW’s success rate of achieving a 100 kW decompression target through delayed charging was 94%;

By August 2016, the first phase of the ChargeForward project reduced the grid load by more than 19,000 kWh, saving costs while reducing carbon emissions.

In addition, BMW has also used the i3 battery pack to create a family energy storage system to provide family energy storage support for project participants (as shown below):

According to the i3 related parameters sold in North America, the car comes standard with a 7.4KW charger. According to the calculation of 100 participants, this project can reduce the grid load of 740KW in the most ideal situation, but considering the actual situation of charging, BMW sets the project target to reduce the grid load by 100KW each time, achieving a high of 94%. Success rate.

In the future, in the second phase of the project, BMW decided to increase the number of people and find more than 250 project participants. At the same time, this project will not only be open to i3 owners, but also the i8 new car owners and iPerformance series plug-in hybrid owners can apply for participation. . However, the project awards have been relatively reduced, with a one-time prepaid bonus of $300 and an additional bonus of up to $900 based on participation.

This time, BMW will be able to provide the grid company with a larger grid load reduction target. Considering that this is still a limited-scale experimental project, it is not expected to significantly achieve the peak load of the grid load; however, once the test is successful, Its scaled application is still worth looking forward to.

Imagine if Tesla is pursuing this service among its thousands of California car owners, with the support of some car owners, it already has megawatt-level grid decompression strength. In this way, grid companies should really consider exploring similar projects with electric vehicle companies.

Although this “electric vehicle-grid” service is still in the experimental exploration stage, cooperation between BMW and PG&E grid companies is still worth learning and promotion. Once the experiment is successful and brought to market, it will eventually formally “retire” the expensive power plants that are specifically set up to compensate for the shortage of power during the peak period. On the one hand, the pollution is greatly reduced, and on the other hand, the benefits for electric vehicle owners are brought. At the very least, some additional "car subsidies" can be provided, aren't they?

Xiao Bian believes that with the popularity of electric vehicles, the “peak-to-valley difference” of grid load will be more prominent; while the dynamic charging allocation of electric vehicles will provide “decompression services” to grid companies, while providing additional revenue to vehicle owners. It is also in line with the transformation and exploration of vehicle manufacturers from manufacturing to service business. Furthermore, with the development of renewable energy applications and the development of energy storage technologies in the future, the feedback from electric vehicles to urban power grids will be more diversified, and more new formats and services will be created.

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