ARENA backs $5.35 million trial of up to 130 electric vehicles in Australia's largest commercial vehicle-to-grid deployment

Up to 130 fleet EVs to feed power back into the grid

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) has announced a trial that will test whether parked electric vehicles can support the electricity grid and earn money for their operator. The Realising Electric Vehicle-to-Grid Services 2 (REVS2) project will see up to 130 electric vehicles and bidirectional chargers deployed across the ACT Government fleet, in what is being described as Australia's largest commercial deployment of vehicle-to-grid technology. ²¹

Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology uses a bidirectional charger to direct electricity into a car's battery, or from the battery back into the grid during periods of high demand. The partners named in the announcement are ARENA, charging company Jet Charge, energy retailer AGL and the ACT Government. The Australian Associated Press, reported by the Canberra Times, described the trial as multimillion-dollar and running for three years. ¹²

Conflicting funding figures in the two announcements

There is a discrepancy in the reported funding. According to AAP's reporting carried by the Canberra Times, ARENA will invest $4.1 million and Jet Charge will contribute $1.25 million, a combined $5.35 million for the three-year trial. ARENA's own media release, published by the National Tribune, states the agency has announced $4 million in funding to Jet Charge and does not itemise a Jet Charge contribution. The two figures have not been reconciled in the available announcements. ¹²

From a 2020 proof of concept to a commercial fleet test

REVS2 builds on Australia's first vehicle-to-grid trial, funded by ARENA in 2020, which brought together many of the same organisations. That earlier project tested whether electric vehicles could safely export electricity back to the grid. Jet Charge future business general manager Kristian Handberg told AAP the follow-up would test its use with a commercial fleet, saying: "We have to move beyond 'This is what it looks like in a best-case scenario' to 'How does it actually work in the real world?'." ¹²

ARENA chief executive Darren Miller said the project tackles a key missing piece for bidirectional charging in Australia: how large fleets can be incentivised to support the grid while still meeting their day-to-day transport needs. Jet Charge CEO Tim Washington said the first REVS project had shown the technology works, and the task now was to "prove it makes commercial sense" so that the business case appeals to fleet operators. ²

Health service vehicles plugged in overnight as peak-demand assets

Many of the vehicles in the trial are used to deliver in-home health services, meaning they sit unused at ACT Government buildings overnight. Handberg told AAP that those vehicles are only used during the day and are plugged in from the end of the business day, allowing stored energy to be drawn back out of the cars at night to help solve the electricity system's peak demand problem. ¹

The trial, running until 2029, will test whether businesses can generate revenue or cut costs by connecting their electric cars to the grid. ARENA transport general manager Alex Grant told AAP the test should also signal to automakers that Australia is ready to support more V2G-compatible cars, and guide organisations considering investment in the technology. He encouraged interested parties to engage with project operations along the way rather than waiting until the project ends. ¹

The ACT Government framing builds on a documented outage event: ACT Climate Change, Environment, Energy and Water Minister Suzanne Orr said a number of ACT Government fleet vehicles successfully fed power back into the grid during an outage in February 2024 under the original REVS project. Orr also said more than 40 per cent of newly registered vehicles in the ACT so far this financial year have been zero-emissions battery electric vehicles. ²

Interoperability testing in Canberra alongside the announcement

The announcement coincided with Australia's first Open Charge Alliance Plugfest event in Canberra, bringing together charger manufacturers, charge station management system providers, software developers and energy companies to test interoperability between charging infrastructure, energy management platforms and grid integration systems. The event is supported by ARENA's Vehicle-Grid Network project and is intended to help build interoperability, cybersecurity capability and industry readiness for bidirectional charging. ²

REVS2 also forms part of ARENA's broader push on bidirectional charging, which includes funding the national Bidirectional Charging Roadmap in 2025. AAP noted the announcement came one month after retailer Amber Electric expanded its residential V2G trial to another 1000 homes, and after record electric vehicle sales during 2026. ²¹