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How EV batteries could stabilise South Africa’s power grid

Battery electric vehicles (BEVs) are central to global decarbonisation strategies, yet their large-scale deployment remains uneven.

In emerging economies such as South Africa, recent research from the University of Pretoria indicates that vehicle-to-anything (V2X) integration can substantially reduce both embedded solar generation costs and the cost of electric vehicle operation.

Nick Singh, Head of the Smart Grids Centre of Excellence at Eskom, joins ESI Africa to explore South Africa’s evolving energy ecosystem. He shares insights into the role of electric vehicles (EVs) in smart cities, the development of mobile containerised microgrids, and how Eskom is integrating battery storage, solar, wind, and even green hydrogen into its infrastructure strategy.

Persistent techno-economic and technological barriers though continue to constrict widespread BEV adoption, despite their potential.

According to the study, Issues include:

• the high initial BEV cost,
• grid instability due to high electricity demand during peak periods,
• lack of recharging infrastructure,
• high battery costs and limited lifetimes,
• restrictive driving range,
• long recharging times and
• high levelised cost of driving (LCOD) or total cost of ownership relative to internal combustion engines

The study suggests that one promising approach to overcoming these techno-economic and technological barriers is the adoption of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology or, more broadly, vehicle-to-anything (V2X).

“Examples of new applications include Vehicle-to-Building (V2B), Vehicle-to-Load (V2L), Vehicle-to-Home (V2H) and Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2I).”

Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G): Unlocking EVs as distributed energy storage

Zooming in on vehicle-to-grid (V2G), the study notes that it has been under consideration as a means of providing additional energy storage since the late 1990s.

“Compared to small-scale embedded solar (SSES) systems, BEVs are equipped with large batteries. A typical SSES system will deploy a battery capacity of 10kWh to 20kWh whereas BEVs have capacities of 40kWh to 100kWh. Even for a small country like South Africa, which has a fleet size of about 12 million vehicles, the total sum of stored energy will amount to 840GWh, if 100% conversion to BEVs takes place before the 2050 Net Zero date.

“Given that South Africa has an annual electricity demand of 195TWh, the energy stored in BEVs represents about 38 hours of electricity supply for the entire country.”

The study emphasises that these calculations do not suggest the use of BEVs as gigawatt-scale energy storage schemes; instead, they demonstrate the potential of V2G to enable utilities to access distributed storage resources required for reliable electricity supply without incurring substantial capital costs.

“Such storage could enhance grid stability, mitigate supply/demand imbalances, act as devices for valley filling and peak shaving and regulate electricity frequency.”

The study further notes that V2G in South Africa is shaped by two factors. First, the Eskom generation crisis has driven small-scale embedded solar (SSES) deployment, with installed capacity surpassing 5GW by mid-2024. Second, installations are uneven across income groups, exacerbating inequality.

“The dominant reason for the installation of SSES has not been directly linked to a net zero energy transition but instead to distrust amongst energy customers in the national utility. Future policies to support an e-mobility transition need to increase the uptake of electric vehicles but also ensure an inclusive rate of adoption.”