Vehicle To Grid Technology
My question is to Senator McAllister, the Minister representing the Minister for Climate Change and Energy—and I congratulate her on her promotion. Given the proven potential of electric vehicles to provide energy and system security services to the electricity grid using vehicle-to-grid, or V2G, technology, which was recently demonstrated by the Realising Electric Vehicles-to-grid Services project run at ANU, is the government taking steps to update and harmonise the national grid codes and standards to facilitate the broader adoption of V2G technology?
Senator MCALLISTER: Thank you very much, Senator Van, for that question. You're right that this is a technology that potentially has great potential supporting consumers in meeting the energy needs in their own households but also, if done well, supporting our broader requirement to have a grid that is reliable and can respond flexibly to changes in demand across that grid.
Minister Bowen sometimes refers to electric vehicles as 'batteries on wheels'. It's on that basis that the government are taking the steps that we are taking, generally, in relation to electric vehicles and, specifically, in relation to the national standards that are required to make sure this technology is integrated and integrated well. You'll know that we had an extended public discussion about standards for new vehicles and encouraging a greater number of models and a greater choice for consumers in relation to vehicles, and that applied to more-efficient petrol vehicles but also to the importation of a wider range of electric vehicles, including vehicles that are at a price point that will be attractive to the broadest range of consumers. But you speak specifically of the issues in relation to the grid. It is a matter that the energy ministers have paid a great deal of attention to. In fact, at their last meeting, energy ministers adopted a roadmap that sets out a series of pieces of work that the energy ministers agreed to undertake together to establish the relevant standards for electric vehicles. Minister Bowen has been clear that he would like to see some progress on some of those matters over the course of this year. But we understand that this is a technology where we have time to prepare.
The PRESIDENT: Senator Van, first supplementary.
Senator VAN: Minister, given that AEMO has not even included the capability in their ISP to any great extent and there are billions of dollars being prioritised for restricting the grid—gold plating it, some would say—and given the growth of EVs in the evolving landscape of the technology, is the government considering revising its market projections in energy policies to better reflect the potential contributions that EVs with V2G technology could make?
Senator MCALLISTER: Thanks very much, Senator Van. You are right to make the point that the technology potentially could have a real impact on the projections for both demand and supply in the National Electricity Market. We are at a point in time where the technologies that are available to us are evolving and changing. It is for that reason that AEMO not only regularly updates projections and updates the systems plan but also makes sure that, when it does that, it engages very closely with a range of stakeholders to make sure that the assumptions that they are using and the inputs they are obtaining reflect broadly the understanding in the market about the technologies that are afoot and coming towards us. Right now, we do not have a particularly large number of vehicles with this capacity ready to go in this market. But that could change, and I am quite certain AEMO will be watching this as they update, as they regularly do, their projections. (Time expired)
The PRESIDENT: Senator Van, a second supplementary.
Senator VAN: Minister, is the government planning to allocate additional funding or introduce incentives to support research, development and deployment of V2G technology?
Senator MCALLISTER: Senator Van, as you know, the chief vehicle for providing support for emerging technology and technology trials is ARENA. In our last budget, the government substantially replenished ARENA's funds to provide support for a range of technologies, including, potentially, the technologies that you speak of.
We are conscious that this is a world in which Australia is just one participant in a global market where vehicle manufacturers around the world are thinking about how best to integrate this capacity into the vehicles that they sell. I am quite certain that the reforms we have undertaken to change the shape of the Australian market will see Australians with a much greater opportunity to access some of these vehicles as they come into commercial production globally.
