V2G vs V2L: What's the difference?

Your EV is more than just a car. When charged, your EV essentially becomes a large battery on four wheels. Combined with today’s smart tech, this allows your EV to do some pretty nifty stuff.

Enter V2G (Vehicle to Grid) and V2L (Vehicle to Load) technologies. These both work off the same core principle – that your EV can hold charge and use it to power other things – but have different uses. Here’s what you need to know.

V2G allows you to charge your EV when energy is cheapest, then send this energy back to the Grid at times of high demand.

As a concept, this sounds simple enough. Equally, why not just use your EV to drive, and use your mains electricity when you need to power your home? Let’s start at the top.

Between 4pm and 7pm every weekday, many of us get back from school or work, pop the kettle on, run the washing machine, or start cooking dinner. This causes a surge in demand for energy, which the Grid balances by:

• Making electricity more expensive (which is why we have peak rates)
• Drawing more of its energy from non-renewable sources

If you charge your EV during off-peak hours, when energy is cheapest and most likely to be drawn from renewable sources, then send it back to the grid to power your home during peak times, this helps balance energy demand. As a result, the Grid buys it back from you at a higher price.

In other words, you buy electricity cheaply, then sell it for a profit. You spend less on peak rate electricity, and offset your energy bills with the money you make selling electricity back to the Grid.

You’ll need a specific setup for V2G, including:

• A compatible car
• A V2G-enabled charger that allows bidirectional charging
• A smart export tariff (like Octopus Energy’s Power Pack tariff)

Currently, V2G is a pretty cutting-edge technology which is (mostly) still in its trial phase – only a handful of current EVs offer this compatibility. We expect this number to increase as the technology becomes more widespread, so watch this space!

V2L allows your EV to act like a power bank on wheels. The key difference between V2G and V2L is that V2L doesn’t send any energy back to the Grid – it uses energy to power things directly.

Using V2L, you can charge your everyday devices, but given your EV battery’s huge storage capacity, V2L can power things a little bigger than your phone, laptop or tablet. This could include camping equipment, lights, medical equipment, or even your entire home in case of a powercut.

Whether you’re using it to keep the lights on or power a camping stove, V2L is a useful feature to have – just bear in mind that using your battery will decrease your EV’s available range, and monitor accordingly.

All you’ll need is an EV that’s V2L compatible.

V2L needs bidirectional power flow technology to convert high DC voltage stored in the car’s battery to AC power suitable for electrical appliances. Many EVs on the market today offer this technology as standard – and manufacturers are committed to expanding it to even more models in the long term.

Some of the most popular V2L-enabled EVs include:

• The BYD Atto 3 and Dolphin
• The Omoda E5
• The Volkswagen ID.3
• The MG 4

V2G allows your EV to sell power stored in its battery back to the Grid. This helps balance energy demands, saves you money on your electricity bill, and powers your home with more green energy.

V2L uses your EV’s battery to directly power a range of appliances, from mobile phones to medical equipment. It’s convenient on a camping trip, and useful to have on hand in a power cut.

Currently, V2L is more widespread as a technology – but V2G is catching up! Many manufacturers are starting to offer both on newer models, so it may not be long until these smart, cutting-edge technologies are considered a standard EV feature.

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