‘It’s a virtuous spiral, and it’s just beginning’: electric vehicles as mini power plants

We’ve all heard it. That phrase trotted out with deadening familiarity by green sceptics: “Solar and wind are all very well, but what happens when the breeze doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine? Have you thought of that, eh?”

For anyone who believes in the renewable energy revolution, it’s a frustrating comment, but it contains more than a grain of truth. Because, while increasingly cheap and efficient, wind and solar are undeniably intermittent. They don’t provide so-called ‘baseload’ electricity – always on, 24/7 – in the same way that conventional power plants can.

That’s a problem, as electricity is notoriously hard to store: ideally, you balance supply and demand. Hence the appeal of ‘baseload’ gas, coal or nuclear plants, which can be brought into play to match demand. Hence, also, the need to pay wind generators to turn off their turbines when excess supply is being produced: around £180,000 spent per hour in the UK alone. Large battery banks are coming onstream, but they’re expensive and have limited capacity.

As renewables’ share of electricity generation soars – wind and solar together account for 28% of European production – so does the challenge of balancing that intermittency with the demands of the grid.

All this, too, at a time when there’s growing pressure to decarbonise power supplies in order to hit climate targets. For Europe in particular, that means shifting away from using gas or oil to heat our buildings, and petrol or diesel to drive our cars. Instead, we need to electrify our transport and heating, which will massively increase electricity consumption. Some estimates predict that the share of energy produced by electricity could double or more by 2050. And climate targets necessitate that all this electricity be produced in as green a way as possible. That includes hydro and (some would say) nuclear, but crucially, more wind and solar.

Electric vehicles are a key driver of that demand surge. Despite talk of a backlash against them, sales continue to grow. Across Europe, EV sales are up 34% in the 12 months to January 2025, even as the overall car market shrinks. In the UK, more than a quarter of cars sold are now electric, and surveys show that more than half of British drivers say their next car will be an EV.

That at least sounds like wonderful news for the climate: here we are, well on our way to decarbonising motor transport. Except for the inconvenient fact that all those EVs need charging, putting more demand on a stressed-out grid. One of the most popular times for charging is early evening, which happens to coincide with peak demand for electricity across the board.

Put like that, the rapid growth of EVs suddenly looks less like a feature of a greener power system, and more like a bug. This could put electric cars on a collision course with climate aspirations – except for one much more convenient fact: electricity that goes into an EV battery can be exported out of it again.