V2G and Wireless V2G concepts: State of the Art
and Current Challenges
Hicham BEN SASSI, Fatima ERRAHlMI, Najia ES-
SBAI
Laboratory of Renewable Energies and Intelligent Systems
Faculty of Sciences and Technology, Sidi Mohamed Ben
Abdellah University
Fez, Morocco
Hicham.1 bensassi@gmail.com
Abstract- The electrical vehicle (EV) has revolutionized the
transportation sector as it uses electrochemical batteries as power
sources instead of fossil fuel based gasoline, which helps reduce
greenhouse gas emissions. Due to technological advances in
electronics and bidirectional power inverters, EV is no longer
viewed as just transportation tools, but in addition, could serve
as electric storage units for the grid by supplying ancillary
services. The concept of vehicle to grid (V2G) no longer a
fiction, but rather a reality. Numerous scientific papers and
research activities are addressing the V2G via plug-in cable
energy transfer. However, the tedious and inconvenient aspects
of cable based power transfer hinder some users and may hinder
the development of the EVs, thus wireless charging is seen as a
key enabling technology to increase the adoption of electric
vehicles. This paper outlines the state of the arte in the wireless
V2G concept, presenting its potential convenient electricity
markets and the existing bidirectional wireless power transfer
technology for EVs. Furthermore, it presents an outlook on some
challenges to overcome for high efficiency, and faster
deployment of this technology.
Keywords-BV, wireless charger, Bidirectional power
transfer, lithium-ion battery, transportation grid, wireless V2G
1. INTRODUCTION
Tremendous efforts have been made in the last few decades
aiming to overcome climate change and reduce the dependency
on fossil fuel based energy sources, by integrating renewable
energy sources, and legislating new laws and policies
governing several sectors. However, the transportation sector,
which is a major contributor of oil consumption, remains a
major challenge [1]. The transition to EV will lead towards
green and sustainable transportation system, especially when
refueled from renewables. Automakers have been developing
electrified vehicles such as pure electric vehicles (EVs)
alongside hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) for the past several
years. This emerging interest in EVs has led to an exponential
increase of EVs integrated as loads into the grid, which might
be troubling for the electric grid, resulting in line overloading
alongside voltage and frequency instability.
978-1-5386-7850-3/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE
Chakib ALAOUI
University EUROMED
Fez,Morocco
Concurrently, the share of renewable energy sources (RES)
injected in the electrical grid is growing, and due to increasing
power demand of the distribution network as well as the
intermittence nature of many RES, maintaining a balance
between periods of peak supply and demand on the electric
system is becoming more difficult. The answer to overcome the
squandering of the electricity produced by renewable sources
and balance peak demand and peak supply is through storage
units. such as Pumped Storage Power Station (PSPS) generally
associated with wind turbine and electrical batteries associated
with solar energy. Nevertheless, the additional financial
expenses related to storage restricted the deployment of such
systems. However, with the emergence of V2G technology,
electric mobility offers the possibility to introduce its
embedded storage unit into the electrical system [2]. Alongside
an advanced scheduling for charging and discharging, EVs
high performance batteries could provide a practical solution to
the grid related problems by supplying the EV stored electricity
power to the grid or the local loads when needed [3,4,5]. V2G
offers tow-way power transfer between EV batteries and the
grid, via bidirectional power inverters.
Simultaneously, due to the recent development in the wireless
power transfer (WPT), EVs wireless charging has become the
center of interest and been investigated in several research
papers [6]. WPT brings a lot of advantage such as user
friendliness, the possibility of dynamic charging, and it could
significantly improve usability of V2G, due to the lack of
physical connection between the vehicle and grid. Although
bidirectional wireless power transfer presents itself as
promjsing option for V2G, there are still some hurdles to be
surpassed to achieve high efficiency power transfer, such as
range limitation, limited air gap and coil misalignment [7].
In this paper, we present a global view on the V2G technology
via wireless bidirectional power transfer (WBPT). The
fundamental operation of V2G and wireless V2G is presented.
The suitable charging technology and markets for WBPT are
also investigated, alongside the standardization and challenges
to take into consideration during the design of a WBPT.
 The rest of this paper is organized as follows; the
fundamental of V2G and the suitable markets for this
technology are presented in section 2. Section 3 outlines the
fundamental operation of WPT alongside different WPT
methods. Section 4 deals with deployment challenges. Finally,
the paper ends with conclusion
II. OVERVIEW OF V2G AND ITS SUITABLE MARKETS
A. V2G Technology
Vehicle-to-grid is a new technology concept whose
objective is to balance the peak demand and peak supply and
better integrate fluctuating RES into the electric grid. It is
based on bidirectional power transfer instead of the classical
unidirectional charge of the EV batteries. When parked, an EV
or an EV fleet will either absorb electricity or provide energy to
the grid as illustrated in fig 1. The energy flow either from or to
the vehicle is controlled via real-time signals depending on the
requirement of the electric system and the EV battery state of
charge (SOC) [8].
In the light of recent statistics on the global stock of electric
cars in 20 I 7 which surpassed 3 million vehicles threshold [9],
the shift towards V2G technology is proven to be promising,
and could further be encouraged. In addition, personal vehicles
are usually utilized for transportation 7 to 10% of the time, for
average trips of 30 Km [10], leaving them available the
remaining 90 to 93% for other uses. In addition, with the recent
development in EVs batteries, EVs offer a significant storage
capacity to fulfill grid requirements. Moreover, EVs are made
by design to operate in a frequent power fluctuation due to the
nature of roadway driving [11], which makes them suitable for
ancillary services, and integrating the intermittent renewable
energy sources into the grid or isolated house.
Vehicle to grid (V2G) Vehicle to house (VlH)
Fig. 1. Schematic of V2G concept and vehicle connection to the grid
On the other hand, and in order for V2G to be economically
viable and financially beneficial, the electrical power
distribution market and the vehicle need to be matched.
Although electricity is categorized in many different markets,
such as base10ad power, spinning generators, peak power, and
regulation, V2G is not suitable for some of them. Baseload
power is the round-the clock electricity production. Spinning
reserve or emergency reserve are generators set up and kept
ready in case of equipment failure. Typically they have quick
response time and are called for small duration 10 min to I
hour. Peak power is used to compensate a predictable high
demand. Regulation reserves are used to keep the power in the
grid steady in case of grid default or flickers. Usually, they are
summoned for short period, one to few minutes at time. Based
on the nature of each market and the characteristics of EV
batteries, V2G is only competitive as spinning or regulation
reserves due to their quick-response and to their availability
(per hour available), since peak and baseload are paid per KWh
generated and required to function continuously. An
implementation of V2G for frequency regulation was presented
in [12], in which the authors demonstrated V2G as a
contributor of regulation and as provider of storage. The
performances were tested via experimental study of EV
demonstrated at a variety of sites. While in [13] V2G for
reactive power compensation was investigated.
Besides injecting power to a distribution grid, one of the
promising markets for V2G is integration of RES to a transport
grid or isolated sites. The idea of integrating RES through EV
matching the time of production to the time of load has been
explored in [5, 14]. In [5], a detailed hourly system analysis of
the impact of V2G on Denmark national energy systems
integrating wind power was investigated. The analysis was
performed by the use of an EnergyPLAN model. Simulation
results of different scenarios led to the conclusion that V2G
will not only improve the ability to integrate wind power into
sustainable energy systems, but could even replace regulating
power stations.
B. Wireless V2G
Recently, wireless bidirectional charging for V2G has become
at the center of interest in research community [15]. Unlike
plug-in V2G, the electronic circuitry composing the primary
side of the wireless transformer including bi-directional power
converters are embedded on a parking surface, house or the
road. The receiver coil alongside the remaining bi-directional
power converters are installed underneath the vehicle as
illustrated in Figure 2. Other than the advantage of the removal
of cable based V2G, wireless bidirectional power transfer
offers isolation between the load and the source alongside
flexible and mobile loads/generators.
IT
Bidircctional ACIDC HF Bidircctional DC/AC
converter converter
Fig. 2. Block diagram of EV bidirectional wireless power transfer.
The power transfer will be as simple as parking over a
charging pad and the system will automatically allow power
transfer from or to the grid. This process is convenient and can charger and vehicle, the charger could be on-board [21,22] or
be repeated when needed and whenever the vehicle is parked. off-board [23]. For off-board chargers, all the charging activity
The grid operator, having the permission of the owner, could is done outside the vehicle via an external charger regrouping
easily inject or retract power from EV fleet in case of an the entire necessary electronic component as illustrated in
unpredicted imbalance or frequency change in the grid, without Figure 3. The infrastructure is similar to the gas station for
internal combustion engine based vehicle. This type of charger
the necessity of charging stations.
offers fast charging capabilities reducing the EV charging time
Wireless V2G concept is proven feasible by numerous considerably. As for the on-board charger, the necessary
researchers. The authors of [15] presented a study of wireless electronic component providing the conversion of the AC grid
bidirectional power transfer from standardization and health power to the stable DC charging power of the battery are built
concerns standpoints. Additionally, they performed in the vehicle as shown in Figure 3. This type of charger offers
experimentation on V2G and G2V models for different charging possibility at any accessible power outlet either at
scenarios. The obtained results confirmed that bi-directional homes, garages or parks. Generally on-board chargers are the
wireless power transfer is advantageous, and could reach an most common, and are the ones used in V2G technology.
efficiency above 90% for power transfer levels of (7 kW).
While in [16] a self-resonant PWM (SR-PWM) based control
was suggested for bidirectional power transfer alongside the
feasibility verification of the proposed approach using a 6.6-
kW prototype, with 12-20 cm air-gap. Furthermore, a new
topology having a relay was investigated in [17] for a
bidirectional WPT. The viability of the proposed topology was
verified under PWM shift phase control strategy via
experiments, and the obtained results were promising. Aiming
for the same objective in [18], the authors presented a detailed
design of 1 kW tow-way wireless power transfer using the
Inductive technology. The proposed topology comprises of a Fig. 3. Off board charger
grid inverter and low power converters for both IPT primary
and secondary. The power transfer was regulated by
controlling the phase delays between the primary and pickup
inverter, while the grid inverter was controlled with a DQ
current controller alongside an outer voltage control loop. The
performance of the proposed technology were verified by
simulations on 1 kW prototype, and then validated by
experimental results. Universal Bidirectional IPT charger
which can accept both AC and DC input was proposed in [19],
the performances of the proposed single-stage universal IPT
topology was investigated for both V2G and G2V modes under
different inputs, an AC simulating a grid line and DC Fig. 4. on boared charger
simulating solar PV. The obtained results confirmed the
feasibility of the wireless V2G for both injecting energy to the The physical connection hindrance of on/off-board chargers
grid as well as integrating solar PV. in addition to potential field failure connectors and cables
pushed the industry towards a search for simpler and wire free
III. EV CHARGING SYSTEMS charging method (wireless charging systems).
The battery chargers are viewed as a linking device that
performs power transfer between an EV and the grid. They B. E V wireless chargers
have received a significant attention in research communities Cable based charging will soon be viewed as obsolete due
[20]. A battery charger is an electronic device converting AC to the proposition of wireless charging systems WCS offering
electrical energy into controlled DC suitable to charge the EV high power transfer capabilities [24, 25]. In comparison to their
battery pack. Two main types of chargers have been proposed predecessors, the power transfer is done via either magnetic
throughout the years, the first one is conventional conductive flux fields, or electric flux depending on the employed
chargers or cable based chargers, and the second is wireless technology. WCS brings several benefits such as reduce battery
chargers. capacity in the vehicle, thus reducing the weight and volume of
the battery pack, alongside increasing driving range without the
A. Conductive chargeres necessity of charging stops, the vehicle could be charged in
Conductive chargers or cable-based chargers are widely stop light as static charging, or charged along the road as in the
adopted by almost every EV Company. The power transfer for dynamic charging [26]. Although several technologies have
this type of charger is through physical contact between the been investigated for wireless power transfer, such as
capacitive wireless power transfer CPT, Magnetic gear wireless TABLE I. SAE J2954 STANDARD FOR LIGHT DUTY EV WlRELESS
CHARGING
power transfer (MGWPT), Inductive power transfer (IPT) and
Resonant inductive power transfer (RlPT) [24, 27]. RIPT WPT WPT WPT WPT
Features
Class I Class 2 Class 3 Class 4
which is an advanced version of the classical IPT, is considered Max input power 22Kw
the most practical and efficient due to the constant adjustment (KW)
3.7 Kw 7.7Kw llKw
of the synchronisation speed required in MGWPT [28] and the Minimum targeted
>85%
limited air-gap and transmitted power in the capacitive efficiency
technology [29]. RlPT is the classical IPT together with Operating frequenc
85KHz band (81.39Khz-90Khz)
Khz
compensation topologies included on the receiver and
transmitter sides used to mitigate the loosely coupled coils and
As the time of writing this article, SAE has not released a
high leakage inductance, together with creating resonant case,
TIR addressing the bidirectional wireless power transfer
hence the RIPT. Fig 5 depicts an example of bidirectional
specifications. However, all the actual studies are adapting the
RIPT block diagram for EVs. In order to achieve power
existing unidirectional TIR SAE J2954 to the bidirectional
transfer from the primary coil to the receiving coil (charging
technology.
mode), the low frequency AC supplied by the electrical grid is
converted to a DC power by the means of the rectifier (QGIG4),
and then to high frequency AC fed to transmitting coils thought IV. DEPLOYMENT CHALLENGES
compensation capacitor Cpo The received high frequency AC is Although WV2G seems advantageous compared to plug-in
then converted to DC voltage suitable for batteries using the V2G, issues regarding infrastructure development, power
secondary rectifier, the power inverters in this case function in transfer efficiency, and maintenance need to be addressed
Buck mode. As for the power transfer to the grid (injecting before deployment is possible. In order to overcome such
mode), the battery DC power is converted to high frequency challenges, plenty of static tow-way wireless charging stations
AC fed to the transmitter (vehicle side), the power inverters in need installing on the roads and in houses. Such networks
this case function in boost mode. The received high frequency
demands for a new infrastructure development, thus additional
magnetic field by the primary (grid side) is converted to DC an
financial requirements. In addition to the need of new laws
then to low frequency AC suitable to be injected into the grid
governing the injection to the grid, and defining the
after filtering in order to have a low total harmonic distortion
(THD). Besides compensation topologies, Ferrite plates are relationship between the grid operators and EV owners.
mounted underneath the transmitting coils and receiving coils Moreover, there are concerns regarding the impact of the
in order to reduce the leakage flux, and thus increasing the frequent bidirectional power transfer on the battery pack's
transmitted power, as well as for safety concerns. health and life cycle, especially when the battery pack
represents up to 40% of the total EV price, thus the necessity
of an extensive study regarding the revenue of the V2G.

V. CONCLUSION
Wireless V2G concept is proven to be a possibility. EV could
serve as power storage units for the grid, in the form of either
spinning reserve and voltage regulators or smooth integrators
of RES into the grid. In this paper, the authors presented a
global state of the art in the wireless V2G concept, from
suitable technologies and markets, going through the standards
to take into consideration, and presenting some challenges to
surpass for better and faster deployment of the technology.
Moreover the

Fig. 5. Block diagram of bidirectional RIPT ACKNOWLEDG MENT

The WPT is regulated by standards established by the
Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) in the form of
technical information report (TIR). The latest TIR SAE J2954
version released in Mai 2016 addresses unidirectional charging,
specifying 85 kHz band (81.39 kHz-90 kHz) as common
frequency for all light duty vehicle systems. In addition, it
defines the power levels in four classes as presented in the
following table 1.
This research did not receive any specific grant from
funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit
sectors.
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