Electric cars feed their electricity back into the grid when they’re not being driven

It’s only half past ten in the morning and the sun’s already burning mercilessly from the sky. The thermometer’s reading over 30 Celsius when we meet Daniele Farrace at a Mobility station in Tesserete near Lugano. Not ideal conditions for a video interview – but the 36-year-old from Ticino is smiling despite his shirt and long trousers. “The heat suits the topic.” The temperatures that prevailed throughout Switzerland at the end of August were “above-average” even by Ticino standards, according to the doctor of engineering (ETH). This is the ideal time to talk about the energy transition.

Farrace is the Chief Innovation Officer of distribution grid operator Azienda Elettrica di Massagno (AEM) SA. The company employs some 25 people and serves around 9’000 customers. “We’re small, which is why we need to be innovative and agile,” Farrace emphasises. AEM is the local network operator: at the beginning of the year, the company was awarded the Watt d’Or energy prize. It was singled out for a project in the little village of Lugaggia, where AEM was able to significantly increase the municipality’s consumption of its self-produced electricity thanks to an intelligent networking of electricity consumers and solar producers. For Farrace, awards like this aren’t a reason to sit back – quite the contrary. “The faster we can push ahead with the energy transition, the better.”

Daniele Farrace believes strongly in the future of V2X, which is why he’s fully committed to his “V2X Suisse” side-project. Not least because, according to estimates, Switzerland will be home to some two million electric vehicles by 2035. “This trend has huge potential.” For comparison purposes: the Leibstadt nuclear power plant today achieves a nominal output of some 1.22 gigawatts of electrical energy, while two million e-cars have the potential of delivering around 15 gigawatts of electricity. 

As a next step, local grid operator AEM is looking to develop business models together with its partners in the V2X side-project – namely Mobility, Primeo Energie (Zurich city’s electricity utility), the FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, and the OST University of Applied Sciences of Eastern Switzerland – to ensure the economic viability of the V2X model going forward. Farrace stresses that the challenges here are not primarily in the technical area. “The technology exists, and it works. What’s needed is the right framework,” he says. Legislation and regulations in Switzerland are still too conservative. He’s not deterred by this. “We want our input to make an active contribution to the energy transition.” To achieve this goal, the V2X pioneer is happy to accept interviews at temperatures over 30 Celsius.