The first edition of V2G Leaders Europe 2025 brought almost 200 representatives from policy, industry, research, DSOs, standardisation bodies and innovation hubs to Brussels for a full day of debate on the future of smart and bidirectional charging. What emerged the most was the message that Europe is no longer asking whether V2G will become mainstream, but what alignment, governance and collaboration are required to scale it across markets.
The event opened with a strong political signal from DG ENER, DG RTD and DG CNECT, positioning V2G at the crossroads of Europe’s energy, mobility, digital and research agendas.
Mechthild Woersdoerfer (DG ENER) underlined that climate and competitiveness are now tightly linked. To meet targets such as 32% electrification by 2030 and 42% renewables in transport, Europe needs EVs that act as flexible grid resources, not just loads. V2G can support grid stability, lower bills and contribute to the Green Deal beyond transport, provided it is backed by robust data exchange, interoperability and initiatives like the Common European Energy Data Space.
As Joanna Drake (DG RTD) highlighted, European research is already piloting bidirectional charging and new business models, but stressed the need to move from prototypes to commercially attractive products. Regulatory sandboxes, the Automotive Action Plan and a potential future Automotive Joint Undertaking will be key to bridging this gap.
Speaking on behalf of DG CNECT, Thibaut Kleiner placed V2G within a wider digital and geopolitical context, recalling President von der Leyen’s message that “the future of cars must be in Europe”. Software-defined vehicles, sovereign digital platforms, open-source technologies and common data spaces for energy and mobility will all play a decisive role, with V2G as a key meeting point between these domains.
Crucially, Member State examples showed that V2G is already moving beyond the lab. In France, The Mobility House and Renault are operating a commercial V2G-AC service, offering “zero emissions and zero charging costs” for participating drivers. In Finland, Virta is turning EV fleets into a virtual power plant, using AI-based forecasting to stabilise the grid and enable independent aggregators. In the Netherlands, Utrecht has progressed from a local regulatory sandbox to an open market model for V2G, while in the UK, more than 700 bidirectional chargers and long-term flexibility targets point to V2G as a major future source of system flexibility. These cases confirm that deployment is possible, but scaling still depends on clear regulation, viable business models and user-centric use cases.
Throughout the afternoon, parallel sessions explored the technical and ecosystem layers underpinning this transition. Speakers from EEBUS, Trialog, ElaadNL, Digital4Grids and others discussed how architectures and standards are converging, while the V2X Cluster of Horizon projects (including DriVe2X, SCALE, EV4EU, AHEAD, XL-Connect, FLOW and ePowerMove) shared lessons from real-world implementation: dealing with legacy protocols, adopting newer ones such as OCPP 2.x, managing data and addressing concerns around battery degradation and warranties. The message was that the overall direction is clear, but everyday engineering and market integration still require experimentation and iterative learning.
Finally, CEI-Sphere and the Large-Scale Pilot O-CEI hosted a dedicated session on the "Sectoral and Business Value Chain in V2G". Moderated by Tanya Suarez (BluSpecs), the session examined how to ensure that today’s investments will still generate value in 5–10 years, in a context of rapidly growing EV numbers, emerging dynamic tariffs and increasing expectations on system flexibility. O-CEI pilots from Romania, Austria and Italy showed how cloud-edge-IoT architectures, 5G connectivity and cross-sector cooperation can transform conceptual blueprints into real services. Through CEI-Sphere, these experiences are being linked into a broader ecosystem that supports cooperation between Large-Scale Pilots, builds a shared understanding of CEI markets and fosters a community capable of reusing and scaling solutions.
Taken together, the first edition of V2G Leaders Europe 2025 has made clear that Europe has the expertise, standards work, policy direction and industrial momentum. The clear takeaway from Brussels was that the next step is not to invent yet another concept, but to align, connect and scale what already exists, so that V2G can become a visible and trusted part of Europe’s everyday energy and mobility systems.