The SCALE project has released a new white paper titled “Turning EV Fleets into Grid Assets”, exploring how electric vehicle fleets can become a valuable resource for balancing Europe’s electricity grids.

As EV adoption grows across the continent, their potential now goes beyond mobility. EV batteries can serve as flexible, distributed energy resources that help not only to decarbonize transport but also to stabilize the grid. One of the most critical services in this context is the automatic Frequency Restoration Reserve (aFRR), which provides rapid response to correct short-term grid imbalances and maintain system stability.

Within the SCALE project, We Drive Solar, Enervalis, and Equigy successfully demonstrated the real-world capability of EV fleets to deliver aFRR services. Tests in the Netherlands confirmed that EVs can reliably respond to grid signals at scale, providing up to 700 kW of flexibility, even under today’s infrastructure and regulatory conditions. This represents a crucial step toward integrating EVs as active players in the energy system, especially as the grid increasingly depends on distributed resources to replace conventional power plants.

To fully unlock this flexibility, the white paper highlights the need for smarter data reporting methods like delta monitoring to reduce communication loads, as well as improved baseline energy calculations to prevent false grid signals. Faster, cost-effective communication technologies such as 5G and edge computing are essential to enable reliable, real-time EV-grid interaction. The paper also calls for regulatory updates to formally include EV fleet managers, greater tolerance for short-term data variations with post-event corrections, and improved forecasting and prequalification models to better predict and integrate EV fleet flexibility.

Read the full white paper here: SCALE White Paper

Download the SCALE Insight summary here: SCALE Summary