Nissan LEAF to showcase unique energy transfer capability tailored for South Africa

Nissan LEAF to showcase unique energy transfer capability tailored for South AfricaAutomotive World publish what I presume is a press release from Nissan.

Nissan, in partnership with the uYilo e-Mobility program in South Africa, is to demonstrate its revolutionary technology that allows power stored in electric vehicles to be used in a range of home and commercial applications. The world’s best-selling electric vehicle, the Nissan LEAF – the only commercial electric vehicle used for bi-directional energy transfer capability – is being used in a uYilo field test program to demonstrate and develop Nissan’s award-winning charger technology in South Africa.

This technology I can really see having lots of applications in South Africa. Plugging the car into your home, you'd be able to draw on the energy stored in the vehicles battery. This power can be either used to help power things in your home or also fed back into the national power grid. This could really help with the peak electricity demand in the early evenings.

The technology has been further developed to deliver V2G, allowing energy in the battery to be traded with municipal and energy utilities to increase capacity, while also providing the opportunity to stabilize the grid during peak electricity usage. 

If motorists plugged their cars in when they got home in the evening they would utilise whatever power they have in their battery to help power appliances in their home, that would help relieve the strain on the electricity network at peak demand time. Then later on when electricity demand is less the flow could be reversed and the vehicle can charge overnight.

This is another potential benefit of electric vehicles. The article also mentions the biggest benefit to the motorist.

A 2015 study, for example, found that running an all-electric LEAF for a year costs
R18, 000 less than a petrol car, based on the average South African annual mileage of 30,000 kilometers.