The intelligent control of electric vehicles offers enormous potential for stabilizing power grids and replacing expensive power plants that run on natural gas. In the “OctoFlexBW” pilot project, Octopus Energy and TransnetBW tested how hundreds of electric vehicles can be flexibly and automatically controlled to manage grid congestion.
Helene Neugebauer discusses the project’s technical milestones, the role of the in-house software platform “Kraken,” and the regulatory hurdles that still need to be overcome for widespread deployment in Germany.
To begin with, could you explain the structure of the OctoFlexBW project and the urgent need that led to the collaboration between an energy provider like Octopus Energy and a transmission system operator like TransnetBW?
Transmission system operators like TransnetBW are responsible for ensuring the grid remains stable and, to do so, require flexible capacity—particularly for redispatch, i.e., grid congestion management. As an energy provider, we in turn manage thousands of electric vehicles and thus a massive amount of power that we can flexibly shift. We can make this potential available to the grid and are therefore significantly cheaper than backup power plants running on gas. However, when we launched OctoFlexBW, there was neither a regulatory nor a technical framework in place for this. So-called Redispatch 3.0 was just theory. That’s why we joined forces and established all the necessary processes to intelligently control hundreds of electric vehicles—from the technical integration of our software platforms to balancing based on real-world requirements. In doing so, we’ve demonstrated: Technically, we can get started today; we’re ready. What’s still missing now is the regulatory framework.
Controlling thousands of devices in real time sounds like a logistical nightmare. How exactly does the platform decide which wallbox to throttle and which one can continue charging?
Ten years ago, that would probably still have been impossible, but today our Kraken platform processes more than 15 billion data points worldwide every day. Digital solutions and AI are incredibly good at handling this complexity. But our top priority is always our customers’ needs. If someone has to leave at 6 a.m., we make sure their car battery is fully charged by then. After that, we can adjust based on a wide range of factors—from grid operators’ signals to locations and even the weather. We virtually never have to throttle charging. We simply reschedule the charges.
The projections show enormous potential. At what scale does this model become economically significant enough that we can noticeably do without conventional redispatch measures (such as ramping up gas-fired power plants)?
We estimate that with 20 million electric cars, we could cover a large portion of the redispatch demand. If we could intelligently control the electric cars already on the roads today, we would already notice the difference. Electric cars certainly can’t handle redispatch on their own yet, but they represent “potential that’s already there,” cost us less than any gas-fired power plant, and currently work against the grid rather than for it in many cases. That’s why we should integrate as many as possible. A critical mass is essential, primarily because grid operators need reliability. We can’t always predict how individual customers will behave, but with thousands of cars, we can forecast the fleet’s behavior with a high degree of accuracy. We’ve also gained valuable experience in this area through the project—for example, regarding behavior on holidays.
The rollout remains one of the biggest tasks to tackle before we can truly leverage consumer flexibility on a large scale. With OctoFlexBW, we had the major advantage of being meter operators ourselves and were thus able to equip all our customers. During the project period alone, we installed several thousand meters. But the bottom line is: it won’t work without smart meters. In Germany, this problem is holding back not only Redispatch 3.0 but also countless other innovations.
Will participation in flexibility markets like OctoFlexBW become a standard feature for electric car owners in the future to reduce their own operating costs?
Absolutely! The average car sits unused for more than 23 hours a day. During this time, electric cars are essentially just large batteries, and that’s exactly how we’ll use them in the future. For owners, this means enormous savings potential. Whether it’s Redispatch, dynamic grid tariffs, or even V2G: the added value they provide to our energy system will soon make electric cars unbeatably affordable. As soon as we can both reschedule charging sessions and feed electricity back into the grid, electric car drivers won’t pay a single cent for their charging electricity. With our V2G rate, our customers are already driving 16,000 kilometers for free.
