The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) announced a $5.35 million, three-year trial on Wednesday with Jet Charge, AGL and the ACT government in what will be Australia's biggest commercial deployment of vehicle-to-grid technology.
The announcement comes one month after Amber Electric expanded its residential test of the technology to another 1000 homes, and after record electric vehicle sales during 2026.
Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology uses a bi-directional charger to direct electricity into a car's battery or from the battery into the grid during periods of high demand.
The Realising Electric Vehicle-to-Grid Services 2 (REVS2) trial will bring together organisations from ARENA's first V2G project in 2020.
That trial tested whether the technology could feed power back into Australia's electricity grid, Jet Charge future business general manager Kristian Handberg said, while the follow-up would test its use with a commercial fleet.
"We're investigating how it could work for business - it's not a given," he told AAP.
"We have to move beyond 'This is what it looks like in a best-case scenario' to 'How does it actually work in the real world?'."
ARENA will invest $4.1 million and Jet Charge will contribute $1.25 million to test a fleet of up to 130 electric vehicles and bi-directional chargers used by the ACT government.
Many of the vehicles would be used to deliver in-home health services, Mr Handberg said, meaning they could be connected to the electricity grid at night.
"Those vehicles only get used during the day and then they sit back in ACT government buildings from the end of the business day," he said.
"We can take the electrons back out of the car when they get plugged in at night and then solve the peak demand problem in the electricity system."
The REVS2 trial would operate until 2029 and test whether businesses could generate revenue or cut costs by connecting their electric cars to the grid, ARENA transport general manager Alex Grant said.
The test should also send a signal to automakers that Australia was ready to support more V2G-compatible cars, he said, and guide organisations looking to invest in the technology.
"We'd really encourage people to engage with the project operations along the way," Mr Grant said.
"We don't want everyone to sit back and wait until the end of the project to understand what happens - we would really love to be that catalyst for people to come and have a look."
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