The Grid Can't Wait for Everyone to Go First

NC State research finds V2G's biggest barrier is coordination failure, not technology, and calls for urgent US policy action

27 Mar 2026

America has roughly 4 million electric vehicles on its roads, parked around 95% of the time. That dormant battery capacity could stabilise the power grid, reduce peak demand, and compensate owners for their contribution. A study published in March explains why it is not yet happening.

Researchers at North Carolina State University and the University of Colorado Denver, publishing in Utilities Policy on March 18, interviewed 42 stakeholders across the vehicle-to-grid, or V2G, ecosystem: power utilities, EV manufacturers, government agencies, school districts, and EV owners who participated in real-world pilots. Their central finding: V2G is being held back by a coordination failure, not a technology gap.

"V2G adoption is a coordination problem rather than a technology problem," said Serena Kim, an assistant professor at NC State and the study's corresponding author. "It's really a chicken-and-egg issue." Utilities will not build compensation programmes or infrastructure until more V2G-capable vehicles are on the road. EV buyers cannot plan to offset ownership costs through grid-export revenue without programmes already in place. Automakers, in turn, have limited incentive to equip vehicles for grid export without confirmed utility demand.

Compounding the standoff is a fragmented regulatory landscape. V2G-related rules differ from state to state and, in many cases, city to city, making it difficult for utilities, charging operators, and automakers to plan or invest at scale.

Real-world deployment has concentrated heavily on electric school buses and fleet vehicles, where predictable schedules make compensation arrangements easier to design. Private passenger vehicle programmes remain scarce.

The researchers identify one priority above all others: standardising the technical and interconnection requirements that govern how vehicles interact with the grid. Without that shared foundation, the coordination problem is unlikely to resolve on its own.

The study, funded by the National Science Foundation, arrives as grid operators increasingly look to distributed resources to absorb growing renewable generation. How quickly federal and state regulators move to harmonise V2G rules will determine whether parked cars remain an untapped asset or become a meaningful part of the grid's flexibility toolkit.