V2G for UK Business Fleets: Can Your Vans Power Your Building?
A depot full of electric vans is also a warehouse full of batteries. A typical electric LCV carries 60–90kWh of storage — park ten of them overnight and you are looking at more capacity than many commercial battery storage installations. Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) charging is the technology that unlocks it: bidirectional chargers that let vehicles discharge into your building or the grid when energy is expensive, and recharge when it is cheap. Here is where the technology actually stands for UK fleets in 2026, and what is worth doing about it now.
How V2G works — and how it differs from smart charging
Standard smart charging controls when a vehicle draws power; the flow is one-way. A bidirectional charger adds the return path: energy can move from the vehicle's battery back through the charger into your site's distribution board (vehicle-to-building) or out to the grid (vehicle-to-grid). The economics are the same levers as stationary storage — peak shaving, overnight-to-peak tariff arbitrage, and soaking up midday commercial solar generation — except the batteries arrive free with the fleet.
The catch is compatibility. Bidirectional charging has historically been built around the CHAdeMO connector, which most new vans and cars no longer use, while CCS-based bidirectional support — the connector standard the UK market actually runs on — is still emerging as vehicle manufacturers and charger makers adopt the newer interoperability standards. Vehicle warranties also vary on discharge use. That is why 2026 is a planning year for most fleets, not a full-rollout year.
The depot maths
Whether V2G stacks up is mostly a question of parking behaviour, not hardware. The value comes from vehicles being plugged in during the expensive evening peak and charging during the cheap overnight window. A last-mile delivery fleet that returns to the depot by 6pm fits perfectly; a trades fleet still on jobs at 5.30pm does not.
- Peak shaving: discharging parked vehicles during your site's peak half-hours caps the maximum demand your bill is priced on — the same 20–40% bill-reduction mechanism as stationary storage.
- Arbitrage: the overnight-to-peak price spread on half-hourly tariffs is pure margin on every stored kWh, cycled daily across the fleet.
- Solar synergy: a rooftop array charges the fleet at midday for free; the fleet gives it back during the evening peak. Model the solar side with our battery savings calculator.
What to install now: V2G-ready, not V2G-everything
The pragmatic 2026 strategy for most depots is to build the infrastructure so bidirectional units can drop in later: size the grid connection and distribution boards with headroom, run cabling and groundworks for the full future charger count, choose back-office software that already supports bidirectional control, and confirm vehicle-warranty positions with your leasing provider. The workplace EV charging you install today — supported by the Workplace Charging Scheme at up to £350 per socket for eligible businesses — should be specified so the depot never needs digging up twice.
Pair the charging design with the site's wider energy plan: a commercial solar array plus stationary storage delivers the peak-shaving benefits today, with fleet bidirectional capability layered on as vehicle support matures.
Where we can help
We design and install commercial EV charging, solar and battery systems for depots across Essex, Hertfordshire, Suffolk and North London, and advise on V2G-ready depot design nationally. If your fleet electrification plan should also be an energy strategy, start with a free site survey — we will model your half-hourly data, your parking patterns and your roof together.
Frequently Asked Questions
Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) charging lets an electric vehicle discharge energy back out of its battery — into your building (sometimes called V2B) or the grid — instead of only drawing power in. A bidirectional charger manages the flow in both directions, effectively turning a parked fleet into distributed battery storage.
It is early-stage but real. Bidirectional hardware and vehicle support are still limited compared with standard smart charging — historically built around the CHAdeMO connector, with CCS-based bidirectional support now emerging as newer vehicles and chargers adopt the relevant standards. For most fleets in 2026 the practical step is to install V2G-ready infrastructure and cabling now, and add bidirectional units as vehicle support matures.
The Workplace Charging Scheme provides up to £350 per socket (up to 40 sockets) toward workplace chargepoint installation for eligible businesses. It is aimed at standard chargepoints; whether a specific bidirectional unit qualifies should be confirmed with the installer and current OZEV guidance at the time of application.
The mechanisms are the same as commercial battery storage: peak shaving (capping your site's expensive maximum demand), tariff arbitrage (charging vehicles overnight at cheap rates and discharging during peak prices), and higher solar self-consumption. The realistic scale depends on how many vehicles are reliably plugged in during peak windows — depot-based fleets with predictable overnight parking are the strongest fit.
Depot-based operations where vehicles return to a fixed site and sit parked for long, predictable windows: last-mile delivery, service and maintenance fleets, community transport, and pool-car sites. Fleets that are on the road at peak times, or that hot-desk across sites, get far less value from bidirectional capability.