Accelerating Bidirectional Charging in Australia: Insights from the Vehicle-Grid Network’s Inaugural Roundtable
April 2026
The Vehicle-Grid Network (VGN) is building the coordination and collaboration to accelerate the deployment of electric vehicle-to-grid technologies and make EVs a valuable asset for people, businesses, and the grid. It convenes industry, government, and researchers to develop a shared knowledge base, facilitate industry alignment, coordinate market signals, and increase consumer confidence to unlock the full value of bidirectional charging.
Commissioned by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) in partnership with RACE for 2030 CRC, the project is led by us and the University of Technology Sydney’s Institute for Sustainable Futures.
Climate KIC Australia will convene collaboration across industry, government, and researchers to share insights, learn from emerging technologies and uncover new value opportunities.
Connecting diverse system actors across the transport and electricity sectors to strengthen shared intent and decision-making
Increasing compatibility, trust, and legitimacy around innovative market technologies and deployment pathways.
Enabling continuous learning and collective sense-making.
Aligning governance settings across jurisdictions to support enabling conditions and unlock structural barriers to V2G
Generating clarity and confidence through shared evidence, insights and aligned investment priorities
Bidirectional EV charging enables an EV to both charge and send power back to a home or the grid at times when it’s most needed. This is also known as Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G).
The opportunity for bidirectional electric vehicle (EV) charging is gaining momentum in Australia. With EV sales rising, there is increasing potential to use EVs as flexible battery energy storage to reduce household and business energy bills and support the energy grid.
Recent product launches, partnership announcements, and media attention are fuelling interest, and early pilots are aiming to demonstrate the potential system and consumer benefits.
Yet the industry is still developing. While V2G-enabled vehicles and bidirectional chargers are increasingly available, the pathway to adoption isn’t straightforward. Consumers and businesses are still navigating complex questions around compatibility, connection approvals, local certification, warranties, and retail and Virtual Power Plant program participation.
And while industry and government are supporting emerging business models, value propositions, certifications, standards, and regulations, there exist variations across use cases and regions.
These conditions make it difficult and costly for any single organisation to move quickly or confidently to create the market on their own.
Through industry roundtables and working groups, VGN will accelerate the scaling of V2G in Australia, delivering benefits for consumers and the grid.
This project will:
The Vehicle-Grid Network is Australia’s first collaboration network for accelerating electric vehicle-to-grid integration.
Australia is well-positioned to unlock the full value of EVs through V2G technology for consumers, businesses, economic resilience, and the energy system. We already have a strong lead in distributed energy resources (e.g. rooftop solar and battery storage).
VGN will be a national point of synthesis on V2G. It aims to connect and amplify efforts across the ecosystem, streamline processes, create local and international market signals, and embed emerging evidence into policy and industry decision-making.
Over three years, VGN will convene leaders from across the ecosystem to address critical coordination gaps and enable a smooth, timely transition to V2G integration.
Key stakeholders include:
The VGN will identify key objectives and actionable recommendations to accelerate V2G compatibility and enable uptake at scale. Collaborations between key stakeholders will help build the capability and shared knowledge needed to unlock the full benefits of EV-grid integration and create a more connected energy future for Australia.
April 2026
Nodoka designs and leads multi-stakeholder collaborations that enable systems-level climate action. With over six years’ experience across energy, transport, agriculture, heavy industry and health, her practice combines systems innovation, experience design, knowledge brokering, and visualisations to shape strategy, unlock shared value, and support coordinated action to accelerate decarbonisation solutions to market scale. Nodoka also leads cutting-edge co-design initiatives that integrate bespoke AI tools with human-centred processes to generate actionable insights and support collaborative decision-making.
As a Project Officer, Viv works on complex multi-stakeholder projects across various areas, with a focus on adaptation and resilience. She has a Master of Environmental Management with Excellence from UNSW, where she was a casual academic and teaching assistant. Having pivoted from a biology and ethology background in Montreal, Canada, she brings a passion for delightfully disrupting the humancentric status quo toward sustainable worldmaking.
Chris Lee is the CEO of Climate KIC Australia and played a key role its establishment. Chris has extensive climate change experience and from 2009 to 2017 led the development and implementation of Climate Change Adaptation programs for the NSW Government. He has degrees in Economics and Environmental Management, and has experience across, public, private and university sectors.
VGN is a unique network for key stakeholders throughout the entire vehicle-to-grid value chain with up-to-date insights. We are continuing to seek leading partners from industry and government to join VGN.