Recently, Nobel Prize winner and "father of lithium-ion batteries" Akira Yoshino shared his new ideas in an interview with the media.
Akira Yoshino said that with the further development of the Internet of Vehicles (V2G) system, electric vehicles may be more suitable for storing power than expensive dedicated battery facilities, so using two-way charging of electric vehicles can help countries with limited land areas such as Japan increase renewable energy storage.
"Promoting renewable energy necessarily requires an electricity storage system, but it is not cost-effective to develop a new system for this purpose." Akira Yoshino said, "We can use electric vehicles as energy storage devices when they stop driving. ”
The data shows that the number of passenger cars and commercial electric vehicles in the world exceeded 10 million last year, reaching at least 550 million by 2040, even if only a small fraction is equipped with two-way charging and can export electricity to the grid, which can create huge opportunities for V2G technology.
Japan is actively exploring two-way charging technology due to limited solar power, onshore wind farms and battery storage sites, resulting in a slow energy transition. More than half of the world's current test models are Nissan Motor Co.'s Leaf, one of the few major models currently offering two-way charging.
Akira Yoshino said that when the number of electric vehicles in Japan reaches 5 million, the available power storage capacity is quite large.
However, there is still a long way to go before this goal is achieved, according to industry outlook data in June this year, Japan's electric vehicle penetration lags behind other countries, and it is difficult to sell more than 200,000 vehicles a year before 2025.