Germany's renewables reform threatens bidirectional EV charging, car industry warns

The car industry has warned that the planned reform of Germany's renewable energy regulation would restrict bidirectional charging of electric cars and thus threaten their business model, Handelsblatt reported. 

Bidirectional charging allows electric vehicles (EVs) to feed stored electricity back into the grid when it is needed by other consumers, effectively helping to balance the grid as battery storage units. The millions of EVs expected to be registered in the coming years are therefore seen as a key flexibility resource for a power system increasingly reliant on intermittent wind and solar generation.

To deal with grid bottlenecks and excess electricity at times of strong solar power output, the government proposes capping the feed-in into to the public grid of new small-scale solar PV installations (smaller than 100 kilowatts) at 50 percent from 2027. The feed-in is currently capped at 60 percent, unless the house has a smart meter. The new rule is meant to incentivise the installation of storage systems, “so that the electricity generated by solar panels at midday - which can no longer be fed into the grid - is stored and then fed back into the grid in the evening,” said the government. 

The electricity and car industries now argue that this provision would restrict the entire house connection, regardless of whether a smart meter is in place, and would also affect the feed-in from EV batteries and not only from solar panels. 

The rule was originally meant for systems without smart meters, “but now it’s also affecting smart storage systems and electric cars, even when there is spare capacity in the grid and the electricity is actually needed,” Jannik Schall, co-founder of the energy company 1Komma5 Grad, told Handelsblatt. 

“This is putting the brakes on a technology that helps drive the growth of electric mobility and the expansion of the grid, and could actually save billions,” said Maximilian Wilshaus, a manager at carmaker VW’s electricity subsidiary Elli. Industry association VDA said it rejects the plans, arguing that the current draft would significantly undermine the economic viability of bidirectional charging technologies, thereby making the technology less attractive to consumers. “Nobody wants that,” a spokesperson told the newspaper. 

Germany's cabinet has approved a sweeping overhaul of support for renewable energy projects, ending guaranteed payments for small new rooftop solar systems and cutting compensation for future wind and solar farms hit by grid bottlenecks. The reform has been hailed as a "paradigm shift" by the economy minister, Katherina Reiche, for her stated aim to cut energy transition costs. Environmental NGOs criticised that the reform would create investor uncertainty, jeopardise the expansion of renewable energy sources, slow climate action and weaken Germany’s position as a business location. It will now be debated in parliament, where lawmakers can still make changes.