Polestar and Danish charging operator Clever are conducting the country’s first complete vehicle-to-everything technical pilot, testing the Polestar 4 as a bidirectional power bank that can charge from the grid, supply power back to a home, and feed electricity into the grid itself. The pilot runs through fall 2026, with Clever targeting commercial V2X solutions for 2027.
The setup tests three capabilities. Vehicle-to-home allows the Polestar 4 to power a residence during peak electricity demand, when grid rates are highest. Vehicle-to-grid returns stored energy to the electricity grid when supply is constrained. Islanding mode provides emergency backup power during outages. A fully charged Polestar 4 can keep an average home running for several days, though Clever has not disclosed the battery capacity threshold that figure assumes.
The partnership builds on Clever’s existing intelligent charging platform, which already schedules charging when electricity is cheapest and shifts load away from high-demand periods. The V2X pilot extends that logic in reverse: the vehicle becomes a controllable asset that can discharge power when the grid needs it or when a household can benefit from stored energy arbitrage.
What the pilot does not address, at least in the announcement: the economics. Commercial V2X in other markets has stumbled on the subscription cost and hardware requirements. Clever has not disclosed whether the 2027 rollout will require a monthly service fee, what the bidirectional charger hardware will cost, or how much of the returned-energy value flows back to the vehicle owner versus Clever. The pilot phase answers technical questions about grid integration and vehicle durability under repeated cycling. The business-model questions remain open.
Denmark is a logical test market. The country has high renewable penetration, which means grid supply fluctuates with wind and solar output, and electricity prices swing accordingly. A vehicle that can absorb cheap off-peak power and return it during expensive peak hours has a clearer value proposition there than in regions with flatter rate structures.
The timeline is aggressive but not unprecedented. Ford and Sunrun have offered F-150 Lightning vehicle-to-home integration in the U.S. since the truck’s launch, though that system does not feed power back to the grid. Nissan has run V2G pilots in Europe and Japan for years without wide commercialization. Clever’s 2027 target puts it ahead of most charging operators in moving from pilot to product, assuming the fall 2026 testing phase does not surface deal-breaking technical or regulatory obstacles.
If you own a Polestar 4 in Denmark and have been waiting for your car to pay you back, 2027 is the year Clever thinks that might start happening. The terms of that payback are still being written.
Source: Polestar. Images courtesy of Polestar.
