New York-based EnergyHub and Virginia’s Fermata Energy are working together to help utilities accelerate the use of electric vehicles as grid-edge resources.

The aim is for utilities to optimise vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology to manage and balance the grid.

Grid-tied electric vehicles are batteries on wheels that can support grid resilience. To accelerate the deployment of V2G installations, grid-edge DERMS provider EnergyHub and V2G services provider Fermata Energy have partnered to accelerate utilities’ access to EVs as mobile distributed energy resources (DERs).

As vehicles and buildings rapidly electrify, utilities are racing to develop strategies that service this increase in load reliably and affordably. In addition to upgrading infrastructure, utilities are creating programmes to manage electricity demand using energy storage and other DERs. The fastest growing sources of energy storage are EV batteries.

Forward-looking utilities are leveraging EVs as mobile energy storage assets to support grid resilience. To do this and meet grid performance standards, utilities and fleet EV operators need better data, insights and forecasting of when and how EVs can send energy stored in their batteries to the grid.

The partnership between Fermata Energy and EnergyHub helps utility clients enhance network resilience and reliability, integrate more renewable power, and relieve major stress points in the distribution network.

Via the partnership, EnergyHub EV delivers utility signals to the Fermata Energy AI-driven V2G platform, which then analyses those utility data and other sources, including customer driving patterns and use, weather, and utility rates. Fermata’s platform then sends simplified alerts to its fleet customers about opportunities to earn revenue from the local utility by discharging energy stored in the EV battery to the grid or to the fleet manager’s building. The fleet manager always has the choice of whether to take advantage of these events and earn revenue while their EVs are parked.

“Our partnership with Fermata Energy expands support for bidirectional EV charging for utility clients across the country,” said Kevin Schwain, senior director of EV strategy at EnergyHub. “This is a critical capability that unlocks the full value of electric vehicles to grid operators and vehicle owners. This is how we ensure EVs become a grid resource rather than a constraint. Together, we’re improving grid reliability and reducing costs, all while keeping a positive driver experience at the core of our approach to optimised charging.”

Anna Demeo, chief product officer at Fermata Energy, added: “We need gigawatts of dispatchable energy to meet demand and add more renewables to the grid. The Fermata Energy vehicle-to-grid platform unlocks the value of EV batteries as mobile energy storage assets. This benefits both fleets and utilities. Machine learning and AI allow us to optimise thousands of rapidly changing data points and make it simpler for both fleets and utilities to manage EVs as distributed energy resources. We’re pleased to work with EnergyHub as we continue to scale vehicle-to-grid for utilities.”

Fermata’s bidirectional charging technology intelligently forecasts both charges and discharges of bidirectionally-enabled EVs. The company is operating V2G sites in utility service territories across the USA.

EnergyHub manages 15 utility EV programmes and provides more than 60 utilities with access to the DER partner ecosystem. EnergyHub EV improves grid reliability by accelerating V2G built on a proven DERMS platform for reliable performance and scalability. The platform allows optimised charging to deliver peak load reduction, daily load shifting and distribution capacity for the grid, and provides grid operators with tools to monitor resource availability, including load forecasting and EV monitoring.