How soon will electric vehicles be able to power our homes? This was one of the first questions posed to Hugo Morais, INESC-ID researcher in Sustainable Power Systems, in an episode of “Plug-in”, Público’s podcast for listeners interested in electric vehicles.

Throughout the episode, Hugo Morais explains how bidirectional charging technology could allow electric vehicles (EVs) to use stored charge in their batteries to supply energy back to the grid or other systems, such as to power tools or to act as a back-up source at home. He emphasises its potential to stabilise energy grids and generate revenue for EV owners while also noting the technical and regulatory challenges that still prevent large-scale application of this technology in the real world.

Even so, there have been pilot-projects with promising results.  The researcher highlights two of the four Horizon Europe initiatives he coordinates; EV4EU (concluded in the past month), focused on Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) technology and tested with EVs in Azores, and Shift2DC, which is currently testing direct current (DC) solutions in the port of Funchal in Madeira. Both reinforce Portugal’s position as a reference in the expansion of the public charging infrastructure.

Listen to the full episode (in Portuguese) here

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Image: © 2026 EV4EU final overview video