EV6 Reservation Tracker: Add Yours Here!

Bi-directional charging capability?

22463 Views 15 Replies 11 Participants Last post by harrim99, 9 mo ago

Johnnz

Discussion Starter · Sep 19, 2021 (Edited)

Just wondering if anyone knows much about this feature? Otherwise known I belive as vehicle to grid (V2G)? I'm considering installing solar pv panels at home and am interested to use the EV6 battery in the system for charging from solar as well as drawing down from for domestic use. Would like to know more about the following :

(1) what is the maximum power output available?

(2) what interface is there to control or limit the battery output to ensure I would still have at least half a battery full each day to go out and about. And when I planned to go for a long drive how would i disable the battery output and instead fully charge the car?

(3) is there a KIA app to use on mobile phone for this and other features of ev6?

At a glance setting up like this might improve the economics of the vehicle purchase considerably since stand alone domestic batteries aren't particularly cheap. Also, the car would often be parked at home in the garage and since the 77.4kwh battery is rather large (compared to the ten year old Nissan leaf I also have) even half capacity would be more than adequate 90% of the time.

Although its called vehicle to grid, I'm not that interested in selling to the lines company as here in NZ you only get paid about a quarter of what you pay for power. So hopefully it's possible just to output to home use only?

Reactions: 1

1 - 16 of 16 Posts

MurlinatoR

· #2 · Sep 20, 2021

Hey Johnnz, great questions!

I don't know the power output although I believe that I read somewhere that it's around 4kwh.

There are settings in the vehicle head unit that allow you to set a stop limit for the V2L function that EV6 possesses. Just set it to 50% and you're all good!

There will be a Kia UVO Link/Kia Connect app that you will be able to use to control all sorts of functions with the EV6. No one knows yet just how deep this app will go for controlling small features like V2L. I presume it will not go that deep but it also might be different per market.

Reactions: 1

Stimpy

· #3 · Sep 21, 2021

Hi Johnnz,

(1) what is the maximum power output available?
In europe the max output is 16 amps (16A * 220V = 3,5KwH)

(2) what interface is there to control or limit the battery output to ensure I would still have at least half a battery full each day to go out and about. And when I planned to go for a long drive how would i disable the battery output and instead fully charge the car?
In the infotainment you can set a minimum battery cap. So when it hits 50%, it stops outputting

(3) is there a KIA app to use on mobile phone for this and other features of ev6?
As said by Murlinator, there is an KIA app (UVO).
Don't know as well if you can set the V2L with it.

Below a video from nextmove (with engish subs) about V2L with a Ioniq 5

See less See more

jongodfrey

· #4 · Sep 21, 2021

I've looked in to this and whilst in theory it is possible it's not as easy as plugging it in and hoping it will work... it will not. Firstly for V2G to work you need some quite complex control equipment. Your car cannot obviously power the whole grid but that's not the tricky part. AC is provided in a wave and the car's inverter needs to be "in phase" with the grid and your supply. This is vitally important for safety. If it's out of phase the potential difference (voltage) would spike and damage anything plugged it to it, your appliances, your car or you!

So just because you have a 3.6kw power sources doesn't mean you can power your home. There are also regulations in most countries which protect those working on the grid. If you have a power cut, you would need to isolate your house from the grid before using the car as a power source to protect those who might be working on it, perhaps fixing an outage. If you isolated your house from the grid this fixes your phasing issue too however you still have the issue of high power demands such as cookers, electric showers or perhaps heating and cooling.

To resolve this you could either ensure all those are turned off before connecting up or better still put all you high demand circuits on a seperate circuit and only enable your important low demand items such as lights and maybe a boiler/furnace if you're in a cold climate. If you go over 3.6kw the car will disconnect likewise if the battery gets too low. So this is no solution for the high demand parts of the day when you might wish to use some of your stored energy.

This is why it's marketed as Vehicle to Load and NOT Vehicle to Grid. I concluded I would just run an extension lead and use it for emergencies. It's certainly not (yet) a home storage system parked on your drive. Somebody might produce some control circuitry to do this but it's not built in to the car and it's limited to 3.6Kw anyway. Technically it can be done, any solar inverter matches the phase and the voltage and feeds supply in to match. On my SolarEdge Inverter you can see this changing on the front panel.

So sorry to disappoint by the EV6 is not a home storage system.

See less See more

Reactions: 1

Stimpy

· #5 · Sep 21, 2021

In the Netherlands there will be a test with the Ioniq 5 and V2G.

this is a translated Dutch website with the an article

link to website

A PDF file with extra info

So it looks like that it can do V2G

Reactions: 1

Johnnz

Discussion Starter · #6 · Sep 21, 2021 (Edited)

jongodfrey said:
I've looked in to this and whilst in theory it is possible it's not as easy as plugging it in and hoping it will work... it will not. Firstly for V2G to work you need some quite complex control equipment. Your car cannot obviously power the whole grid but that's not the tricky part. AC is provided in a wave and the car's inverter needs to be "in phase" with the grid and your supply. This is vitally important for safety. If it's out of phase the potential difference (voltage) would spike and damage anything plugged it to it, your appliances, your car or you!

So just because you have a 3.6kw power sources doesn't mean you can power your home. There are also regulations in most countries which protect those working on the grid. If you have a power cut, you would need to isolate your house from the grid before using the car as a power source to protect those who might be working on it, perhaps fixing an outage. If you isolated your house from the grid this fixes your phasing issue too however you still have the issue of high power demands such as cookers, electric showers or perhaps heating and cooling.

To resolve this you could either ensure all those are turned off before connecting up or better still put all you high demand circuits on a seperate circuit and only enable your important low demand items such as lights and maybe a boiler/furnace if you're in a cold climate. If you go over 3.6kw the car will disconnect likewise if the battery gets too low. So this is no solution for the high demand parts of the day when you might wish to use some of your stored energy.

This is why it's marketed as Vehicle to Load and NOT Vehicle to Grid. I concluded I would just run an extension lead and use it for emergencies. It's certainly not (yet) a home storage system parked on your drive. Somebody might produce some control circuitry to do this but it's not built in to the car and it's limited to 3.6Kw anyway. Technically it can be done, any solar inverter matches the phase and the voltage and feeds supply in to match. On my SolarEdge Inverter you can see this changing on the front panel.

So sorry to disappoint by the EV6 is not a home storage system.

Yes, I agree the V2L function is more basic, but there may be more sophisticated EVSE for V2H or V2G that can output more power in reverse - possibly up to 7kw. The house must be isolated from the grid during V2H function for reasons you stated or electricly synchronised for V2G.

There are other issues too now that I'm reading more about it including battery warranty issues if not using only for driving...

To be honest I'm still confused whether or not V2G is possible in the EV6 or Ioniq5. I've seen an article on clean technica, and Stimpy above mentions the trial using ioniq5 in the Netherlands then others say its not possible and I can only find references to the 3.6kw output available for V2L on Kias website.

S2Hill

· #7 · Sep 21, 2021

jongodfrey said:
I've looked in to this and whilst in theory it is possible it's not as easy as plugging it in and hoping it will work... it will not. Firstly for V2G to work you need some quite complex control equipment. Your car cannot obviously power the whole grid but that's not the tricky part. AC is provided in a wave and the car's inverter needs to be "in phase" with the grid and your supply. This is vitally important for safety. If it's out of phase the potential difference (voltage) would spike and damage anything plugged it to it, your appliances, your car or you!

So just because you have a 3.6kw power sources doesn't mean you can power your home. There are also regulations in most countries which protect those working on the grid. If you have a power cut, you would need to isolate your house from the grid before using the car as a power source to protect those who might be working on it, perhaps fixing an outage. If you isolated your house from the grid this fixes your phasing issue too however you still have the issue of high power demands such as cookers, electric showers or perhaps heating and cooling.

To resolve this you could either ensure all those are turned off before connecting up or better still put all you high demand circuits on a seperate circuit and only enable your important low demand items such as lights and maybe a boiler/furnace if you're in a cold climate. If you go over 3.6kw the car will disconnect likewise if the battery gets too low. So this is no solution for the high demand parts of the day when you might wish to use some of your stored energy.

This is why it's marketed as Vehicle to Load and NOT Vehicle to Grid. I concluded I would just run an extension lead and use it for emergencies. It's certainly not (yet) a home storage system parked on your drive. Somebody might produce some control circuitry to do this but it's not built in to the car and it's limited to 3.6Kw anyway. Technically it can be done, any solar inverter matches the phase and the voltage and feeds supply in to match. On my SolarEdge Inverter you can see this changing on the front panel.

So sorry to disappoint by the EV6 is not a home storage system.

Ford F-150 Lightning does this and the home charger contains the hardware to allow you to power home from reading Ford's info.

For the US FE customers that chose the Kia Charger as gift - this may very be the case here also. Nothing to back that up yet though that I have seen.

jongodfrey

· #8 · Sep 22, 2021 (Edited)

S2Hill said:
Ford F-150 Lightning does this and the home charger contains the hardware to allow you to power home from reading Ford's info.

For the US FE customers that chose the Kia Charger as gift - this may very be the case here also. Nothing to back that up yet though that I have seen.

Yes but I think you need a box fitted in the home (built in to the "home charger"?) from memory which I assume synchronises the supply or may even take a DC feed from the F150 and then acts as the inverter, similar to grid tied solar systems. I must admit I'm not sure how the Ford system works but you are right they have suggested it's a whole house back up which is not the same as V2L and the EV6.

Reactions: 1

jongodfrey

· #9 · Sep 22, 2021

Stimpy said:
In the Netherlands there will be a test with the Ioniq 5 and V2G.

this is a translated Dutch website with the an article

link to website

A PDF file with extra info

So it looks like that it can do V2G

As I said, technically this is possible but not the with car on its own. By directional charging requires synchronisation of phases and load management. This means you will need some kit to enable it. If you take the AC V2L system in the Ionic or EV6 you will have a 3.6Kw limit. If you take a DC supply from the car the limit is much higher, and probably set from the equipment installed. The idea being if you can put 220Kw in you could take much higher out. Unfortunately the web site doesn't say which technology they are using. Also; be careful as "load balancing" the grid normally only deals with 1 to 2 Kw per car (supply) which is not the same as dealing with peak house demands. So house back up supply is not the same and V2G.

Reactions: 2

Creatorex

· #10 · Oct 5, 2021

For me and people who teleworks often and have their own space using car as a home battery is pretty interesting in combination with renewables sources such as sun. Imagine you can charge car during night (cheaper energy) or with sunlight and during summer or winter you can use heating or air conditioning using that much cheaper energy saving lot of money; so business case and car amortization is pretty interesting, including fuel savings, etc. To see your consumption habits you can check your daily, in my case i use to consume about 8-10kwh, so a Battery with 70kwh can last 6 days and also can work (when plugged at home) as an UPS system.

So my question is, does anyone know or have this in place and has experience? Just to get advice, in any case I'm querying KIA bout it to buy a EV6... I see only benefits but if you're able to take it all as a second car with long range, battery for home with intelligent energy management, etc.

See less See more

Reactions: 1

HamishB

· #11 · Nov 29, 2021

Hi John, im also from NZ. Did you get any further info with your query? I have basically the exact same question as you... I think NZ is a bit behind the 8 ball (as usual). I have found a couple of inverters that facilitate v2g or h but nothing available here. See https://wallbox.com/en_catalog/quasar-dc-charger and https://www.dcbel.energy/

[QUOTE="Johnnz, post: 1616, membe

(1) what is the maximum power output available?

(2) what interface is there to control or limit the battery output to ensure I would still have at least half a battery full each day to go out and about. And when I planned to go for a long drive how would i disable the battery output and instead fully charge the car?

(3) is there a KIA app to use on mobile phone for this and other features of ev6?

At a glance setting up like this might improve the economics of the vehicle purchase considerably since stand alone domestic batteries aren't particularly cheap. Also, the car would often be parked at home in the garage and since the 77.4kwh battery is rather large (compared to the ten year old Nissan leaf I also have) even half capacity would be more than adequate 90% of the time.

Although its called vehicle to grid, I'm not that interested in selling to the lines company as here in NZ you only get paid about a quarter of what you pay for power. So hopefully it's possible just to output to home use only?
[/QUOTE]

Johnnz

Discussion Starter · #12 · Nov 29, 2021

Hi Hamish, no, I don't think I did get a definitive answer on the maximum output but does look like specialist equipment will be required to link up with home ac supply.
I actually visited the dealer in Lower Hutt on holiday recently and unfortunately it sounds like we won't get to see any ev6s here until closer to middle of 2022 now due to delays. I did take a look inside the ioniq5 though I think that's the base model they had to get a model eligible for the government subsidy. Guessing an AWD ev6 will be unlikely to get included in that program but perhaps they'll broaden the price bracket to get more EVs into circulation.

whitehawk

· #13 · Dec 17, 2021

Volkswagen has announced that 77kwh cars will be V2G capable, with a software upgrade!
I am hopeful that this will be possible with the EV6. Hyundai are already doing V2G test in Utrecht with the I5 so it should be possible with the same platform. V2H and V2G will be far more useful to me than the current boil a kettle feature.

Volkswagen to increase charging speed of 77kWh ID models | Autocar

"Volkswagen has also confirmed that it will offer bidirectional charging services to owners of ID models with 77kWh batteries. Also known as vehicle-to-grid charging, this allows cars plugged in through special home chargers to feed spare electricity back into the network to help smooth demand at peak times. Customers would be paid for the returned energy."

Reactions: 1

mrpackethead

· #14 · 11 mo ago

I have bitten the bullet and ordered a Kia EV6..( standard ).. I see from below that V2G is 'TBC' for the EV6..

With the state of the power grid in NZ. if you had a spot pricing contract and could control when you put the power back.. you've got a money making machine.

zecar.com

Watt is Bidirectional Charging, V2G, V2H, V2L?

Watt is Bidirectional Charging, V2G, V2H, V2L? by Danny Thai | Guides | Learn more about electric cars and sustainable energy through: guides, FAQs, news and reviews

zecar.com

Reactions: 1

RichardL

· #15 · 10 mo ago

Emporia have a Bi-Directional charger coming out in 2023 that is reasonably priced.
Here is the link to Emporias website:

www.emporiaenergy.com

How the Emporia V2X Bi-Directional Charger Works

The Emporia V2X Charging Station is a bi-directional car charger that can use your car battery to power your home (V2H) or the grid (V2G).

www.emporiaenergy.com

www.emporiaenergy.com

.
This may or may not work with the KIA.
I suspect that we are going to be hearing a lot more about V2H, particularly as a 13.5KW Tesla Powerwall 2 battery comes in at around £10,000 in the UK.

Reactions: 1

harrim99

· #16 · 9 mo ago

Creatorex said:
For me and people who teleworks often and have their own space using car as a home battery is pretty interesting in combination with renewables sources such as sun. Imagine you can charge car during night (cheaper energy) or with sunlight and during summer or winter you can use heating or air conditioning using that much cheaper energy saving lot of money; so business case and car amortization is pretty interesting, including fuel savings, etc. To see your consumption habits you can check your daily, in my case i use to consume about 8-10kwh, so a Battery with 70kwh can last 6 days and also can work (when plugged at home) as an UPS system.

So my question is, does anyone know or have this in place and has experience? Just to get advice, in any case I'm querying KIA bout it to buy a EV6... I see only benefits but if you're able to take it all as a second car with long range, battery for home with intelligent energy management, etc.

I’ve managed to do something like this to use cheaper overnight to power my house from EV6 but with a physical disconnect from grid.
Mark

www.kiaevforums.com

EV6 V2L as my home battery to load shift Octopus Go

So having read a number of threads on if its possible to use the V2L to power your house, I have taken a leap to get a friendly sparky to wire up a transfer switch and commando socket to my house mains. Over the last two weeks I have been able to run my house from the cars V2L switching back to...

www.kiaevforums.com

www.kiaevforums.com

1 - 16 of 16 Posts

This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.