HAVEN project launches

Good Energy is partnering with Honda, Upside Energy and Salford University on a new vehicle-to-grid (V2G) – and ‘vehicle-to-home’ – project which will test how electric vehicle batteries and other battery storage units can impact home efficiency.

Funded by Innovate UK, the new project will take advantage of Salford University’s unique testing facility, Energy House, which is the only full-scale building in an environmental chamber in Europe. Named ‘HAVEN’, it will explore the use of electric vehicle (EV) batteries to provide flexibility to the energy system within the context of other systems in the home, such as batteries attached to solar panel arrays, heating and hot water systems.

Will Swan, professor of building energy performance at the University of Salford, said: “Energy House can be subjected to simulated climates – sun, wind, snow and rain and is equipped with 300 sensors on windows, doors, walls and appliances. That makes it the perfect living laboratory to test what V2G can do because we can measure the gamut of scenarios in controlled conditions.”

Neil Jones, programme manager at Upside Energy said: “These tests at a single house level (Energy House) will help us establish abaseline of data which could be scaled up to hundreds if not thousands of homes and vehicles and start to identify what services can be offered to householders and the grid in the future.”