It's not easy to take advantage of V2G.
Recently, departments such as the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration issued the "Three - Year Doubling Action Plan for the Service Capacity of Electric Vehicle Charging Facilities (2025 - 2027)", clarifying that by the end of 2027, the charging service capacity will double.
One point worth noting is: Improve the price mechanism for new - energy vehicles and charging and swapping stations to discharge electricity to the power grid, and promote the aggregation of vehicle - to - grid (V2G) interactive resources to participate in the electricity market trading. By the end of 2027, the pilot scope of large - scale application of V2G will be effectively expanded. More than 5,000 new bidirectional charging and discharging (V2G) facilities will be added, and the reverse discharge volume will exceed 20 million kilowatt - hours.
The "Three - Year Doubling Action Plan for the Service Capacity of Electric Vehicle Charging Facilities (2025 - 2027)", Image source: National Development and Reform Commission
Soon, some people in the market interpreted that more new - energy vehicle owners can make money by selling electricity, and the spring of V2G is coming.
Is that really the case?
1. Making Money by Selling Electricity
V2G (Vehicle - to - Grid) means from the vehicle to the grid, which is a bidirectional charging and discharging technology. V2G allows pure electric vehicles or plug - in hybrid vehicles not only to obtain electricity from the grid for charging but also to feed the electricity stored in the battery back to the grid.
Through V2G technology, new - energy vehicles can output the stored energy to the grid, thereby powering residences, buildings, and any equipment connected to the grid.
In short, it realizes the bidirectional flow of electricity between the power grid and the vehicle's power battery.
Schematic diagram of V2G technology, Image source: EVB
The purpose of this technology is to turn the power battery of each electric vehicle into an independent distributed energy storage system. By connecting to the grid, electric vehicles can participate in peak shaving and load balancing.
Some experts and scholars believe that the amount of electricity stored in new - energy vehicles is increasing, but this electricity does not play an actual role when the vehicle is stationary, which is a hidden waste of resources. V2G can maximize the utilization of resources.
Specifically, V2G allows new - energy vehicles to charge during off - peak hours and discharge during peak hours. New - energy vehicle owners can use time - of - use electricity prices to reduce travel costs, while the power grid can improve power supply reliability through additional peak - shaving and valley - filling measures.
Of course, new - energy vehicle owners can get paid when feeding the electricity stored in the battery back to the grid.
It's true that you can make money by selling electricity, but can you make a lot?
In March 2025, a user on a social platform posted an article with pictures, introducing the process of making money by using the V2G integrated charging and discharging pile of China Southern Power Grid (hereinafter referred to as the "V2G charging pile"). By discharging 30 kWh, this user earned 120 yuan in half an hour.
If converted into an hourly wage, this user can earn 240 yuan in one hour by discharging 60 kWh.
If 60 kWh of electricity is used to drive an electric vehicle, the actual mileage is about 300 - 400 kilometers. According to relevant data from the Shijiazhuang Transportation Law Enforcement Team and Didi Chuxing, a ride - hailing driver needs to drive for at least 12 hours to travel more than 300 kilometers (including empty - driving mileage).
However, it is very difficult for a ride - hailing driver to earn 240 yuan in one hour. Even in cities like Beijing and Shanghai, a ride - hailing driver who drives for more than 12 hours a day has a daily turnover of about 600 - 700 yuan, which is about 50 - 60 yuan per hour.
This seems to mean that connecting an electric vehicle to a V2G charging pile for discharging is a more profitable business than being a ride - hailing driver, and it doesn't require physical labor.
This seems like a very good thing.
2. Engineering Problems
The concept of V2G emerged quite early. In 1997, energy scholar and engineer William G. Keller first clarified the concept of "vehicle - to - grid", although there were no truly large - scale civilian electric vehicles globally at that time.
However, in the past 30 years, the market has gradually realized that V2G is more like a series of transformation projects for the energy system, which also brings great troubles to the commercial implementation of this technology.
Overseas V2G charging piles, Image source: Wikipedia user @Raysonho
The power grid has extremely high requirements for the stability of the connected power source. The voltage, frequency, and phase must be highly consistent with the standard values. For example, 220V, 50Hz used in China and 110V, 60Hz used in North American countries such as the United States and Canada are all so - called standard values.
If the stability of the connected power source fails to meet the standard values, it will cause an impact on the power grid, affecting the quality of end - user electricity consumption and even leading to a power grid collapse. Currently, China is equipped with large - scale energy storage facilities in new - energy power generation scenarios such as wind power and photovoltaics to alleviate this impact.
Therefore, if electric vehicles in the V2G technology system want to connect to the grid, they also need to solve the stability problem. Otherwise, due to the great differences and fluctuations in the frequency, cycle, and volume of reverse charging of electric vehicles, direct grid connection is almost impossible.
On April 15, 2020, the North China Branch of the State Grid for the first time included V2G charging piles in the North China Power Peak - Shaving Auxiliary Service Market and officially settled the accounts. This project (referred to as the "North China Project") is also regarded as the breakthrough of V2G commercialization in China.
According to public reports, the North China Project adopted the automatic generation control (AGC) closed - loop technology for grid connection. The AGC system of the dispatching center can directly issue instructions to the V2G aggregation platform, thereby automatically controlling thousands of electric vehicles in the system to charge (absorb electricity) or discharge (output electricity) as a whole within the specified time.
Therefore, although the North China Project achieved successful grid connection of V2G, this grid connection is essentially an experiment on the possibility of V2G access. The scale of the regulated electric vehicles is very small, and there is no commercial settlement.
Qin Yudi, the founder of Lianyu Technology, a V2G system solution service provider, participated in this project. He told "Jazi Guangnian": "This project started to be prepared as early as 2017. There is no technical difficulty. Preparing for more than three years was just to obtain the grid - access qualification, which is like allowing a Chinese retail investor to directly trade stocks on the US stock market."
It is understood that at that time, the North China Project also carried out unified regulation in the selection of electric vehicles, and all the participating vehicles were from BYD. There are mainly two reasons. First, BYD's vehicles at that time already had the function of external battery discharge through the charging gun; second, the high consistency of the battery and the system made it easier to complete the project test.
This model of controlling electric vehicles to charge or discharge uniformly through technical means will increase the regulation difficulty and risk as the number of participating electric vehicles increases. A series of problems such as power grid settlement, grid - access standards, and market access mechanisms have caused great obstacles to the commercial implementation of V2G.
For some time after the completion of the North China Project, the market - oriented development of V2G was still very slow and even disappeared for a while.
It was not until this year that the concept of V2G became active in the market again.
3. Policy Effects
The guidance and support of relevant national policies are the most powerful propellants for V2G.
In June 2023, the "Guiding Opinions on Further Building a High - Quality Charging Infrastructure System" issued by the General Office of the State Council proposed to improve the bidirectional interaction ability between vehicles and the grid.
In December 2023, the "Implementation Opinions on Strengthening the Integration and Interaction between New - Energy Vehicles and the Power Grid" issued by four departments including the National Development and Reform Commission proposed that by 2025, a preliminary technical standard system for vehicle - to - grid interaction will be established, the time - of - use electricity price mechanism for charging will be fully implemented and continuously optimized, and important progress will be made in the construction of the market mechanism; by 2030, the market mechanism will be more perfect, and large - scale application of vehicle - to - grid interaction will be achieved.
In July 2024, the National Development and Reform Commission, the National Energy Administration, and the National Data Administration jointly issued the "Action Plan for Accelerating the Construction of a New Power System (2024 - 2027)", clearly proposing to strengthen the integration and interaction between electric vehicles and the power grid, study and improve the time - of - use electricity price policy for electric vehicle charging, and explore the discharge price mechanism.
In April 2025, four departments including the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration jointly announced the first batch of pilot cities and projects for large - scale application of vehicle - to - grid interaction in China, a total of 39 in number. Among them, the first - batch pilot cities for large - scale application of vehicle - to - grid interaction include 9 cities such as Shanghai, Changzhou, and Hefei.
In October 2025, the "Three - Year Doubling Action Plan for the Service Capacity of Electric Vehicle Charging Facilities (2025 - 2027)" issued by departments such as the National Development and Reform Commission and the National Energy Administration proposed that by the end of 2027, the pilot scope of large - scale application of vehicle - to - grid interaction will be effectively expanded, more than 5,000 new bidirectional charging and discharging (V2G) facilities will be added, and the reverse discharge volume will exceed 20 million kilowatt - hours.
Driven by these policies, the market situation is quietly changing.
Qin Yudi frankly told "Jazi Guangnian": "The changes in the V2G market data this year are basically due to the implementation of policies and the promotion of the first - batch pilot cities and projects, and have little to do with software and hardware technologies."
On the other hand, from a commercial mechanism perspective, V2G has bypassed the mountain of difficult grid connection.
We need to clarify a concept: Electricity is a scarce resource. For example, according to the information released by the National Energy Administration, on July 10, 2023, the peak load reached 1.37 billion kilowatts. If calculated based on a household air - conditioner with a power of 1.5 kilowatts, it is equivalent to more than 900 million air - conditioners running simultaneously in China at that time.
But the total installed power generation capacity in the country at that time was only 2.7 billion kilowatts. The power generation power of China Energy Investment Corporation, the largest power generation enterprise in China, was 1.7 billion kilowatts on that day, barely covering the peak load.
This also directly affected people's production and life. For example, in July 2023, many industrial enterprises in Sichuan Province had different degrees of power rationing and load - reduction production to ensure the stable supply of domestic electricity during peak hours. In 2024, the Shenyang Municipal Industry and Information Technology Bureau issued the "2024 Shenyang Orderly Power - Use Plan", and in 2025, the national level issued the "Management Measures for Cross - Provincial and Cross - Regional Power Emergency Dispatching", all aiming at power supply guarantee.
But for the power - consumption side, as long as the electricity price is stable, it doesn't matter whether the electricity comes from the power grid or other facilities. Therefore, currently, most V2G projects in the market choose to bypass grid connection and apply the system in the "behind - the - meter" link.
"Behind - the - meter" is an industry term in the power field, which means "after the user's electricity meter". The "behind - the - meter" application means that the connected power source does not come directly from the power grid, and the electricity cannot be transmitted to the power grid, but directly participates in the local consumption on the user side. The corresponding term is "in - front - of - the - meter".
To put it simply, the behind - the - meter application of V2G allows the electricity reversely output by electric vehicles to be directly transmitted to local buildings, factories, industrial parks, and even residential communities for consumption, without being uniformly allocated by the national power grid.
Compared with grid - connection settlement that requires technical control, the business model of local consumption is not only very mature but also has a low regulation frequency and relatively simple difficulty, and will not cause an impact on the upper - level power grid.
Currently, the virtual power plant project in a residential community in Sichuan Tianfu New Area, the "Photovoltaic - Energy Storage - Charging Integration + V2G" project in Changzhou Xingxing Charging Park, and the "Photovoltaic + V2G + Energy Storage Micro - Grid" project in Dongshe Town, Nantong, Jiangsu are all examples of V2G "behind - the - meter" applications.
It is worth noting that the commissioning time of these cases is all this year.
In addition to the changes in policies and application scenarios, the number of V2G charging piles is also increasing. Currently, there is no official data on the number of V2G charging piles in the market. But Qin Yudi told "Jazi Guangnian": "Now, there are definitely more than 1,000 in the country. However, this year is a year of rapid change in V2G data. The specific number depends on the statistics at the end of the year."
After relevant policy subsidies, the construction cost of V2G charging piles has decreased, and the number has increased significantly.
We learned that currently, the cost of a V2G charging pile in the market is between 15,000 and 30,000 yuan, and the specific amount depends on the power. But according to the report of "China Newsweek", the cost of V2G charging piles in some areas has been reduced to about 5,000 yuan.
Qin Yudi told "Jazi Guangnian": "The cost of V2G charging piles also depends on the financial subsidies of the local government. The cost of a household - type V2G charging pile is about 5,000 yuan, but the cost of those in public charging stations is much higher. If the power selection is the same, it is about three times that of ordinary unidirectional charging piles."
In the context of favorable policies, there are also some speculators in the market who want to get a share of the gradually heating - up market, and some individuals and enterprises have also enjoyed the policy dividends.
But for the majority of ordinary electric vehicle owners, we can directly draw a conclusion: It's not easy to take advantage of V2G.