Bidirectional electric vehicle charging on the cards for 2025 in Germany – media

Germany is set to open the way for bidirectional charging of electric vehicles, which enables car owners to both withdraw power from the grid and to supply it back when the car is idle, from 1 January, government sources told Tagesspiegel Background. As "mobile electricity storage systems, e-cars can make a huge contribution to stabilizing the electricity system," said economy and climate minister Robert Habeck at the second European Summit for Bidirectional Charging. "Their batteries can be used for intermediate storage of electrical energy and thus create additional flexibility. This is a real win-win situation - car owners can also earn money with it." 

Many EVs can already technically feed energy back into the grid but electricity taxes and grid fees have so far meant bidirectional charging doesn't make financial sense for car owners, wrote Tagesspiegel Background. To encourage bidirectional charging, the German government is planning reliefs on electricity taxes and a 60 to 85 percent reduction in grid fees, depending on the EV owner's contract with their provider, reported the newspaper. Starting 1 January 2025, electricity providers will be obliged to offer time-variable pricing. This will allow automatic charging of car batteries when electricity prices are low, while energy can be fed back into the grid when prices are high, wrote the media outlet. 

Ahead of the summit, Habeck said European e-mobility industry representatives have "made it clear today that they want to make bidirectional vehicles and services commercially available from 2025 and have jointly developed the necessary technical foundations and data formats." Around 60 companies from the European automotive, digital and energy industries have identified a set of almost 40 data points and interfaces that are required to implement bidirectional charging. Summit participants also called for an EU legal framework and simpler grid access rules and recommended a simplified metering concept for electricity in Germany, wrote Tagesspiegel.  

Germany aims to have at least 15 million electric cars on its roads by 2030 – a goal that looks increasingly unlikely given the recent decline of EV registrations in the country. But Tagesspiegel reported that if even a small percentage could be charged bidirectionally this could have "enormous" potential to stabilise the power grid.