Boulder EV rolling out vehicle-to-grid charging in electric trucks

After working with Coritech Services on a bi-directional DC fast charging solution, Boulder Electric Vehiclesays it's now the first-ever electric truckmaker to successfully implement Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) charging. The two companies displayed an electric flatbed utility truck equipped with a Tesla-sized 72-kWh lithium battery pack and a Coritech 60-kW DC fast charger at the Alternative Clean Transportation Expo in Washington, DC this week.
There's a lot of power being produced in V2G charging – their current demonstrations are seeing charger rates of 150 amps during charge or discharge on the 360-volt nominal battery pack. A bi-directional V2G fast charge happens when the electric current can be used for two functions – charging the EV's battery and discharging the power for use outside of the vehicle – by a utility that needs more electricity, for example.
In its press release (see below), Boulder EV says that V2G is a key application of smart grid technologies that helps realize the economic value of mass deployment of EVs. V2G can manage the power stored in the battery between the utility, vehicle and charge points. Southwest Research Institute will be supplying the grid aggregation service between the Coritech's EV supply equipment and the grid. Boulder EV and Coritech are working toward a demonstration in late summer 2013 at the Fort Carson US Army installation near Colorado Spring, CO. Boulder EV thinks the demonstration can work within the Department of Defense's larger vision of a mass scale EV deployment.