Nissan Claims Leaf's V2G Feature Helped Winemaker Save $6,000 per Year, Gets It All Wrong

Modern electric vehicles come with interesting features like Vehicle to Grid (V2G) and Vehicle to Load (V2L) to act as energy storage devices or to power external appliances. Nevertheless, just because you could use them like that doesn’t mean you should. Sure, V2L is a nice thing to have during emergencies, but using the car’s battery to store energy on a regular basis will certainly prove a costly idea, putting a high strain on the battery.

Just before Christmas, Nissan Australia shared what looked like a success story, showing how winemaker Joseph Evans has used his Leaf to lower electricity bills. Like many others in the face of high energy prices, Evans has grown frustrated at paying 6,000 AUD per year for the electricity used at its Barossa Valley vineyard in Ballycroft, Australia. That’s why he installed a rooftop solar system that could power his entire property during the day. This immediately removed 4,000 AUD from the electricity bill. Do you think Evans was satisfied? Think again.

He wanted to save even more by finding a way to power the vineyard at night, effectively reducing the electricity bill to zero. Thank goodness Nissan Leaf comes with a V2G feature, which means it can be used as a house battery for energy storage. After fighting his way through the bureaucracy, Evans has got all the necessary approvals to hook his Nissan Leaf to the grid. Like electric vehicles, V2G is fairly new to Australians, so Evans was among the first to get things going. Now, instead of paying 6,000 AUD per year, Evans makes around 2,500 AUD per year from the electricity he sells back into the grid.

Greed is a powerful drive in our society, but often greedy people end up paying more than they save through questionable means. Instead of using his car for energy storage, Evans could’ve spent a few bucks and bought a dedicated storage battery. It doesn’t cost as much as a Leaf, and it can be replaced for a lower price when it reaches the end of its life. A Li-ion battery can sustain only so many charge/discharge cycles, and having it charged and discharged every day might exhaust all the cycles in a very short time.

Let’s say it doesn’t go from full to empty and back every day, but only every other day. This means the Leaf would become a very expensive vineyard decoration in a couple of years. Certainly, making 8,500 AUD per year would not allow Evans to replace his Leaf in that time. The cheapest one in Australia costs 53,515 AUD. Even replacing the battery would wipe out his savings, so Evans did not make a good deal, although it made Nissan Australia happy.