A multimillion-dollar trial of up to 130 electric vehicles will test whether their batteries can ease pressure on the grid and earn money while they are parked. 

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 EVs 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.

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