This project utilised 50 ACT government-owned Nissan LEAF electric vehicles and chargers across Canberra.

the results also highlight the need to be smarter about how all electric vehicles charge, especially during such emergencies.

In February, once the vehicles had discharged power for ten minutes, nine vehicles started charging. This is because their default behaviour is to charge when their batteries are below a certain level. It’s the last thing the power system needs while trying to stabilise.

The six vehicles that switched to an idle state after ten minutes must have still had enough energy in their batteries. That one vehicle kept discharging for ten more minutes was due to a software bug. What’s more, when we looked at data from other ACT government vehicles parked in these properties, we found 23 were charging throughout the event. Again this directly obstructs power system recovery.

There would have been absolutely no inconvenience or cost for the vehicles to delay charging for an hour or two.

electric hot water heaters could also make a big contribution without causing inconvenience.

This is great for short term outages, but they aren’t considering multi-day outages. I lost power in NJ for 11 and 13 days on separate occasions in one year. I wouldn’t want my vehicle to be drained of energy as an event like those started. But shutting off hot water heaters is a pure win.