A Nissan Leaf will be the primary power source for a vineyard in South Australia from next Wednesday, marking a major shift in the relationship between cars and buildings in Australia.

Ballycroft Vineyard and Cellars, located off the Sturt Highway about an hour’s drive northeast of Adelaide, is run by Joseph and Sue Evans.

After a long two-and-a-half-year wait, Barossa residents are set to install a vehicle-to-grid and vehicle-to-home converter that will allow them to use their Nissan Leaf’s two-way charging capability to power their homes and company.

According to Joseph, the converter can do two things: it can charge the car at a rate of seven kilowatts per hour during the day, and then at night the energy stored in the EV’s 40 kWh lithium battery can recharge the house or putting energy back on the grid.

While that doesn’t quite mean the vineyard can be off-grid, it should be able to become as close to energy self-sufficiency without investing in multiple energy storage batteries. On top of that, the Evans also get a vehicle that doesn’t require them to visit the bowser and pay fluctuating fuel prices with the deal.

We had the opportunity to chat with Joseph who explained to us why the vineyard is installing the Wallbox DC Quasar V2G (vehicle to grid) converter.

Joseph says he first thought of changing the way the vineyard uses energy after a trip to California in 2015. With the launch of electric car technology there, they were inspired to become the first valley vineyard to install a Tesla car charging station almost five years ago.

But he was never interested in buying a Tesla, he says.

“I wanted a Nissan Leaf, because it has a CHAdeMO socket.” The fast-charging socket, which is only used on the Nissan Leafs and Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, can quickly charge at 50 kilowatts per hour, which means the Leaf’s 40 kWh battery can recharge from nearly empty to full. in about 50 minutes.

But the main reason Joseph wanted the Leaf is that the CHAdeMo plug also has two-way charging capabilities. While the CCS plug standard will also offer this two-way charging, it will take a long time for this technology to be approved and then filtered to Australia.

So that’s the big reason I wanted this. I purposely bought and listened late. Because that was half the reason because we will have that capability.

After waiting for the 40kWh 2019 Leaf (previous models had a smaller battery with shorter range that didn’t meet their needs), the vineyard is now using it to deliver wines to Adelaide in the morning. On the way back, there are still about 100 km left on the battery after a 160 km round trip.

When they return, they plug in the car and recharge it using the solar panels installed on the roof of the cellar door.

“We probably only charge the car twice a day, once a week or twice a week,” Joseph explains. “We normally drive in Adelaide in the morning as a lot of restaurants like wines delivered before service. And then we charge the car during the day, that is, from 12 p.m. to 5 p.m., and we easily put the car back on a full charge.

Once the V2G converter is installed, “I will mainly use it as a V2H (meaning vehicle to home) converter,” says Joseph.

With the air conditioning to keep the house warm in the winter, he says they use around 22kWh of energy at night.

“We have two fridges, two freezers and, you know, few hair dryers in the morning because I have two daughters. And so we use about 22 kilowatts in winter, (and in) spring and fall, when we don’t have air conditioning, we use about six, seven kilowatts at night.

Although the three-phase charger can charge at a rate of 22 kW, the Leaf’s on-board inverter allows for a maximum AC charging rate of 6.6 kW.

Still, the five hours of afternoon sunlight is enough to add another 30 kilowatt hours of power to the car battery. There are built-in settings in the car that ensure the battery doesn’t drain overnight. If it gets low, the house reverts to drawing electricity from the grid.

In terms of costs, Joseph says the converter will save the vineyard $1,700 in electricity costs per year.

“We use about 6,279 kilowatt hours per year, or about 17 kWh on average per day,” he says.

With the Nissan Leaf setting Vineyard down to around $50,000 and the converter priced at around $11,000 plus installation costs, the payback isn’t exactly short. But, Joseph points out, the vineyard also avoids paying fuel costs and has less maintenance costs for the Leaf.

And, to wean the vineyard off the grid without the V2G converter, the company would have had to spend $36,000 on batteries.

“Instead, I paid $50,000 for a car with a 40kWh lithium battery, which is worth $40,000,” he says, adding that they are also helping to meet demand. from the grid by not drawing power from it during peak hours and by absorbing excess solar during the day.

It’s a compelling value proposition.