Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) announced that the COVID-19 outbreak has not put a stop on the world’s largest Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) pilot project, announced in September 2019.

Work at the FCA plant in Mirafiori, Italy has begun in partnership with the ENGIE Eps as the technology partner and Terna Group (electricity grid operator).

The goal is to install a bi-directional charging system for up to 700 electric cars by the end of 2021, which will be capable of supplying up to 25 MW of regulatory capacity (on top of 5 MW of solar panel capacity at the site).

In normal operations, cars connected to the system will be recharging, but once the grid needs some help for real-time energy stabilization, electric cars will be ordered to jointly send electricity back. In general, EVs will be able to provide high power for the crucial short periods of time (like several minutes) during the day (typically peak demand or low renewable generation), while the total amount of energy might be fairly small – like several kWh per car we guess.

The station at the Drosso logistics center, within the Mirafiori complex, will have an area of approximately 3,000 m2. The first phase, scheduled for July 2020, includes installation of 32 V2G “columns” for 64 electric vehicles (with an output of up to 50 kW). The V2G charging infrastructure is provided by ENGIE.

The press release does not say anything about the charging standard – CHAdeMO or CCS Combo 2, but we guess it would be CCS. Otherwise, Fiat would have to use CHAdeMO inlets in its cars in Europe, which is hard to imagine.

Anyway, thanks to electric cars and V2G, FCA will build a huge Virtual Power Plant with a power output comparable to the demand of 8,500 homes.