Hyundai Motor Group is launching a pilot program to operate a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) system in ordinary households. V2G is a technology that connects electric vehicle batteries to the power grid, allowing electricity to flow in both directions. With 100,000 electric vehicles, enough power can be generated to supply 800,000 people for one hour, prompting countries to accelerate the development of EV-based power grids.
Hyundai Motor (005380) Group said Wednesday that it had recently completed building V2G infrastructure at the homes of 40 vehicle owners residing in Jeju who own the Hyundai Ioniq 9 and the Kia (000270) EV9. Participants in the pilot service charge their vehicles during late-night hours when power demand is low, and supply electricity from their vehicle batteries to the grid during the day when demand is high, experiencing charging and discharging between vehicle batteries and the power grid.
Hyundai Motor Group aims to understand how frequently and at what times customers connect their chargers, as well as their acceptance of battery discharging. Based on this, the company plans to design a V2G commercialization service model and customer compensation system, and to use it in developing V2G-based operations at the Saemangeum artificial intelligence (AI) hydrogen city.
As the importance of energy security has come into focus amid geopolitical risks stemming from the Strait of Hormuz, V2G is drawing attention as a means to improve power grid operating efficiency. Domestic research institutions believe that when V2G is fully commercialized, electric vehicles will be connected to the grid on a large scale, complementing existing power generation facilities or fixed energy storage systems (ESS).
Korea Electric Power Corp. (KEPCO) analyzed that if 100,000 electric vehicles capable of 10kW (kilowatt) bidirectional charging discharge simultaneously for one hour, the power supply effect would be equivalent to a maximum of 1GW (gigawatt) of pumped-storage generation or a large-capacity ESS. 1GW is close to the output of a single large power generation facility, and converted to one hour of electricity, corresponds to a capacity that can supply approximately 800,000 people—more than the entire population of Bucheon—for one hour.
The number of registered electric vehicles in Korea is projected to increase to approximately 4.2 million by 2030. Applying KEPCO's formula, this would create power resources equivalent to 42 ultra-large power generation facilities of 1GW scale. To actually build power infrastructure on the scale of 42 units, pumped-storage generation would require about 84 trillion won, whereas V2G would require only about 5.46 trillion won, according to the analysis. In terms of construction period as well, building 1GW of capacity would require more than seven years for pumped-storage generation and more than six months for ESS, but V2G takes only about one month.
However, the industry points out that the institutional foundation for V2G commercialization in Korea is inadequate, making it urgent to establish relevant standards. Currently in Korea, electric vehicles are not clearly defined as participants in the electricity market or as distributed energy resources, so there is no legal basis to officially recognize power supplied to the grid by vehicles even if they do so. There are also no specific standards on what qualifications allow participation in electricity trading or how compensation for power supply should be calculated.
