Birmingham mum discusses her huge energy bill
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The fossil fuel energy crisis has to household bills and fuel costs to reach record levels over the past year. While the rising fuel costs have led to many considering switching to electric cars, a new scheme could help owners of EVs slash their household energy bills as well. Even as experts now predict that the price cap for household energy could rise to nearly £3,000, Marie Hubbard, an EV owner and nurse in Leicester, revealed that she slashed her bills by half.
Ms Hubbard took part in a trial of 100 Nissan electric vehicle owners who experimented with charging their vehicles when the electricity was cheap and then later using that power stored in the batteries for home use or even selling it back to the Grid.
By taking advantage of fluctuating prices of electricity at different points of the day, Ms Hubbard cut her energy bills from £50 a month to £25 between October and May.
Over the course of the trial, she also sold excess power back to the Grid, earning £125 in the process.
She also had rooftop solar panels to help her, because of which she could charge her electric car for free.
Ms Hubbard participated in the Electric Nation vehicle-to-grid (V2G) project, which was looking at how V2G smart charging technology would work when it was put in the hands of real people.
In a statement, she said: “As well as trialling the Electric Nation vehicle to grid charger, I have solar panels on the roof of my house, and an electricity tariff that allows me to import and export energy.
“So I set the vehicle to charge during the night when electricity prices are lower, and I exported energy from the vehicle to the grid during the peak times of higher demand.
“The result is that as well as reducing my electricity bill from £50 to £25 per month, I also made £25 per month by supplying energy to the grid.
“This shows that vehicle to grid charging has the potential to reduce people’s energy bills, as well as helping to reduce the amount of electricity generated by fossil fuels.”
Both Grid operators and renewables developers have praised V2G technology because it could use renewable energy to its maximum efficiency, by storing solar and wind energy in car batteries for use after dark, for example.
The National Grid believes that soon, almost half of EV drivers could end up using this technology within 30 years, helping drivers save on their bills, while also reducing the strain faced by the grid during peak demand times.
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Roger Hey, WPD’s Electricity System Manager, comments: “Vehicle to grid charging doubles the amount of flexibility in the electricity system, although in reality, it brings even greater benefit because it also allows us to use the same unit of energy multiple times through charge/discharge cycles.
“V2G has enormous potential to reduce the amount of new electricity network that we build and can contribute towards optimising the whole energy system in Britain, ultimately needing less generating capacity and reserve.”
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