This year’s Vehicle & Grid Forum took place from May 7 – 8 in Graz, bringing together participants from both research and industry. The focus was on the future of bidirectional charging – a key topic for the successful integration of electromobility into the energy system.

The discussions made one thing clear: e-mobility is technically ready to take the next step – especially in the area of bidirectional charging. While the technology is fundamentally available, the legal, economic, and social frameworks required to unlock its full potential are still lacking. Currently, users often do not have access to bidirectional charging (only a few V2G-capable vehicles are available on the market, and bidirectional wallboxes remain prohibitively expensive), and they are generally willing to provide only a small portion of their battery capacity. This highlights the need for clear incentives, viable business models, and low barriers to entry.

Smart charging stations and dynamic pricing incentives can also help to mitigate peak loads – yet in Austria, only 10% of charging stations are currently equipped to do so. Furthermore, standardizing charging and payment data was identified as an urgent task.

Initiatives such as the newly established V2G Alliance and Austria’s contribution to the IEA Task 53 show that the industry is ready to collaborate.

The next step is to turn these approaches into practical solutions – transforming technological feasibility into a robust and scalable system between vehicle and grid.