E-cars can make gas-fired power plants superfluous

10.09.2025

Source. E & M powernews

Simply take two and a half gas-fired power plants off the grid in the evening. This fantasy comes from Filip Thon, head of Eon's sales subsidiary - made possible by using batteries from electric cars as a power source.

Eon has its eye on the electric cars of the Republic. According to the energy company's calculations, the batteries of existing e-vehicles could already release enough electricity back into the grid in the evening and at night to cover the needs of two and a half million households.

"Almost two and a half large gas-fired power plants could be shut down," says Filip Thon, CEO of Eon Energie Deutschland based in Munich. This statement refers to the 225,000 electric vehicles in Germany that are currently technically suitable for bidirectional charging. Bidirectional - that is the possible back and forth movement of electricity between the grid and the battery. Eon has set an average capacity of 65 kWh per battery.

According to Thon's calculations, just 60 percent of the current battery capacity could provide the approximately 8 million kWh of electricity that 2.5 million households usually consume between 5.30 pm and 5.30 am. Limited to a five-hour period (until 10.30 p.m.), evening energy would even be available for 4.2 million households.

Eon uses its own analysis of data from the Federal Motor Transport Authority to point out the great potential of bidirectional charging for climate protection. Supported by the next extrapolation: If 60% of the battery capacity were to be returned 200 times a year, ideally filled with green electricity, 238 million cubic meters (2.4 billion kWh) of natural gas could be saved, saving over 500,000 tons of CO2.

The Eon data analysts have also compiled a list of the best states according to the number of bidirectionally controllable car batteries - and thus according to the storage potential for electricity. The result is not surprising, as the most populous states make up the leading quartet: North Rhine-Westphalia ahead of Bavaria, Lower Saxony and Baden-Württemberg.

In NRW, 46,261 cars are "bidi-ready", which could provide 1.61 million kWh of electricity (enough for 517,000 sample households) assuming a charging level of 60 percent. Bavaria's figures are: 38,445 bidi-ready electric cars, 1.33 million kWh, 430,000 households; Lower Saxony: 32,828 e-cars, 1.14 million kWh, 367,000 households; the Ländle: 32,758 e-cars, 1.14 million kWh, 366,000 households. Bringing up the rear is little Bremen: 1,237 electric cars, 43,000 kWh, 13,800 households.

Eon has made the state statistics on the potential of bidirectional charging available online in its "Energy Atlas".

Author: Volker Stephan