Making smart EV charging and demand response easier in Europe Two European Commission expert groups have presented recommendations to simplify data exchange for flexibility and smart and bi-directional EV charging. The recommendations have the two key goals of enabling consumers to contribute flexibility and smart/bi-directional EV charging to the energy system more easily and helping companies offer such services competitively within the European market. As the rollout of decentralised renewables and the electrification of heating and transport accelerate, increasing challenges are arising in integrating these devices into existing energy systems without exacerbating grid constraints. With their battery capacity and availability, EVs should contribute significantly to flexibility. But the recommendations – which were made in a joint report by the Smart Energy Expert Group’s Data for Energy (D4E) subgroup and the Sustainable Transport Forum as well as the German government established Coalition of the Willing on Bidirectional Charging – also extend beyond EVs to create a framework for data exchange that also covers heat pumps, storage and other flexible assets. Also of interest EVs are becoming the grid’s vital asset amid energy volatility How Swedish, US and UK utilities are furthering V2G tech Use cases The basis of the recommendations is the priority use cases selected by D4E and aimed to identify the concrete needs for data exchange and data use: - UC 1: Flexibility information system (registration, prequalification, verification) and flexible connection agreements, i.e. the regulated processes as defined by the ENTSO-E, DSO Entity joint working group. - UC 2: Flexibility market operation (e.g. offers, bids, activation) and flexibility settlement to enable seamless and transparent operation of flexibility markets through structured data exchange and settlement mechanisms. - UC 3: Activation (explicit and implicit) of distributed energy resources, which covers the participation of flexible DERs into the wholesale, balancing and congestion