21/06/2026

/thesuntelegram FOLLOW / Malaysian Paper

ON TELEGRAM m RAM

theSunday Special XI ON SUNDAY JUNE 21, 2026

H UDIKSVALL: When they get home, the residents of a small housing association on the outskirts of Hudiksvall, Sweden plug in their electric vehicles to charge them or, intriguingly, power their homes. The two-way energy exchange enables the eight families living there to save a lot on electricity bills, said resident Filip Kiltorp, a 33-year-old salesman. “We use the cars to power our homes when our energy demand is high,” he said, standing next to his electric vehicle. The cars are connected to charging points by the garages for the homes, which are in traditional red buildings bordered by birch trees and a large golf course. Electric vehicles, when not in use, often have surplus energy stored in their batteries. But having a bi-directional charger means this stored energy can be fed back into the grid to power electrical appliances, lighting and other systems. The software controlling the system ensures the car batteries charge up in off-peak hours, when demand for electricity in the homes is low. In addition, it switches the flow so that the batteries feed electricity back into the local power grid during peak usage hours, when electricity from the network is most expensive, and during power outages. This helps stabilise the grid, explained Klas Boman, the driving force behind the project. It also lowers the electricity bills of the occupants. “Living here is undeniably cheaper,” said Kiltorp. “Electricity costs are a recurring topic of discussion at the office or among friends. We use the same amount of electricity as other homeowners but our bill is much lower.” The homes are powered by other, renewable energy sources too, making them “almost self-sufficient”, he said. No longer simple modes of transport, the cars now also serve as mobile energy storage units. Furthermore, the eight homes have a shared heat pump, which

Swedish pilot project powers homes with electric vehicles On average, a vehicle battery can meet the needs for a household for between five and seven days before being drained. – AFPPIC

case in Sweden, unlike in Norway and Denmark. Bureaucracy and a conservative automotive sector are slowing down large-scale adoption of the technology, although it has been available for a long time, said power grid technologies professor Lina Bertling Tjernberg. The next major step to accelerate its development is to equip every electric vehicle with a bi-directional charging system, said Bertling Tjernberg, who is professor at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. She lamented that incentives to promote the technology are always changing. Potential wear on vehicles batteries is also a concern for some. Bertling Tjernberg said this aspect needs more research, although experience suggested batteries were lasting longer than expected. For his part, Etherden is convinced this is not an issue, given the evidence garnered from the past 10 to 20 years of using electric vehicles. “The battery will last longer than the car,” he said, adding that powering an average home uses the same amount of energy as accelerating from zero to five kilometres per hour. “It is like driving behind a donkey. It is a very careful use of the battery.” – AFP

of inspiration for others,” said Boman, who used to work in the vehicle industry. In Sweden, the technology is being tested in larger buildings, universities and start-ups. Gavle University in central Sweden staged a power cut in the middle of a speech there by the Higher Education minister to demonstrate how its bi-directional chargers worked. They plugged an electric car in and this kept the premises working for several hours. “I call this a battery on wheels,” said university energy systems lecturer and researcher Nicholas Etherden. “Cars drive about 5% of the time. Ninety-five per cent of the time they are standing still in a car park somewhere,” he explained. “If we connect them to the grid, we have a resource that will, at any given time, provide more electricity than the amount people draw from the grid at the highest peak times.” On average, a vehicle battery can meet the needs for a household for between five and seven days before being drained. “So, we have enormous potential,” he said. However, wider adoption of the model still faces several obstacles. For example, it requires a large share of the vehicle fleet to be electric, which is far from the

System software ensures car batteries feed electricity into local power grid during peak usage hours, when cost is most expensive

BRF carmaker Volkswagen and Swedish utility company Vattenfall. It aims to demonstrate that V2G (Vehicle to Grid) technology can work on the scale of a residential complex. “We are trying to be a source Stenberg,

helps manage heating costs. And they have solar panels on the roofs, combined with stationary storage units that hold any surplus power generated by the solar panels. The pilot project is a joint enterprise by housing association

The next major step to accelerate development is to equip every electric vehicle with a bi-directional charging system. – AFPPIC