Nuvve Holding's GIVe (Grid Integrated Vehicle) vehicle-to-grid (V2G) platform is now a certified product compliant with the IEEE 2030.5 SunSpec Common Smart Inverter Profile (CSIP) standard.

This certification is the most widely adopted communications standard between Distributed Energy Resources (DER) and enables Nuvve's GIVe V2G platform to connect and communicate with the leading Distributed Energy Resources Management Systems (DERMS).

The company chose to utilize Congruence.IQ (C.IQ) software by Tantalus Systems, a smart grid technology company, focused on helping build sustainable utilities, to assist with this certification process.

Nuvve chose Tantalus to facilitate the SunSpec certification process of their innovative V2G bi-directional charging solution due to Tantalus' extensive and proven experience with utility data interoperability.

V2G Technology

Nuvve's V2G technology works by allowing vehicle batteries to charge during the day when energy —particularly renewable energy such as solar — is abundant and discharged during times of high demand or when sources of renewable power are less available.

SunSpec Alliance is the information standards and certification organization for the DER industry. SunSpec communication standards address operational requirements of solar and energy storage on the smart grid.

Products certified by SunSpec to the 2030.5 standard for wide-area communication can be installed on sites connected to California Investor-Owned Utilities and can have confidence in their compatibility with local area communication protocols like the freely available SunSpec Modbus Standards.

"As the global leader in V2G, this certification lets our utility partners and customers know that our technology and mobile energy storage sources can be trusted to provide the reliability and responsiveness they need," said Nuvve Co-founder and CEO, Gregory Poilasne.

Forming a Virtual Power Plant

School buses are an excellent use case for V2G integration. Given their larger batteries, the joint solution provides utility command and control of this valuable storage asset which can become a tool for utilities to manage peak demand and enhance grid resiliency.

Nuvve's GIVe platform aggregates electric vehicle batteries across multiple sites and fleets to form a virtual power plant. Utilities and other Load Serving Entities (LSEs) can now draw upon the excess stored electricity in Nuvve-managed EV batteries during periods of peak load.

Fleet operators can also offset their fleet electrification costs through revenues from their electricity exports; utilities and transmission system operators can maintain grid reliability as millions of electric vehicles come online as storage resources and not just additional load.

"Nuvve GIVe can now communicate with other utility-level DERMS, receive signals when the grid is stressed and send data back to the utility about forecasted electricity capacity or kilowatts exported to the grid," said Nuvve Director of Embedded Solutions, Hamza Lemsaddek.

"In addition, our platform also performs other important functions for fleet operators, including balancing the mobility requirements of each electric vehicle in a fleet."

Nuvve GIVe's Success

Nuvve GIVe's ability to aggregate distributed energy resources across multiple electric vehicle batteries was successfully tested for compliance with the networking standard in July, with certification awarded in August.

"As we saw during the recent heat waves in California and Texas, utilities are struggling to manage peak load and are relying on outreaches to customers to voluntarily conserve energy to mitigate the risk of blackouts," said Peter Londa, president & CEO of Tantalus Systems.

"As the demand for electricity increases due to the adoption of electric vehicles, we're excited to collaborate with Nuvve by leveraging our expertise with the IEEE 2030.5-2018 networking standard to enable utilities to improve their resiliency by converting vehicle batteries into dispatchable assets through innovative V2G solutions."

Just recently, Nuvve also announced a virtual power plant for Cajon Valley Union School District with its GIVs software platform. Through this partnership, the platform can give energy back to the grid during emergency load reduction events.