Veolia waste collection trucks are set to power UK homes by transferring stored energy from their batteries back into the national grid.
The first phase of Veolia’s trial has been successfully completed, enabling 110KW of energy to be charged and discharged from two specially-designed bi-directional vehicles. The trial provided enough electricity to supply power to 110 households for over two hours during peak evening hours.
Veolia now plans to expand the trial and test it out on the streets, using Westminster council collection vehicles to pilot the innovation.
As the company plans to electrify all of its 1,800 Refuse Collection Vehicles in the country by 2040, Veolia could provide the grid around 200MW of flexible power capacity daily,.
This would provide an equivalent of the evening peak energy demand of over 150,000 homes.
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“We need to innovate in local decarbonising energy and transform our traditional approaches to take advantage of untapped sources,” said Veolia chief executive Estelle Brachlianoff.
“This requires a change of mindset and a collective willingness to rethink the way we produce, distribute and consume energy.
“The success of the vehicle-to-grid demonstration illustrates this perfectly,” she continued.
“By enabling electric vehicles to become active players in the power grid, we are harnessing their potential to balance energy supply and demand, reduce carbon emissions and promote renewable energy”.
