Owing to recent well-known trends, renewable resources are becoming increasingly prominent in the complex energy market mosaic. As long as their penetration level is low, they can be handled easily by the current infrastructure, but at present incremental rates, this will not be the case in the future. The intermittent nature of solar and wind generation will require a far more flexible compensation mechanism than is currently available. Because of this, large battery banks that act as buffers between the generator and the grid invariably accompany today’s renewable energy installations. Wind power, in particular, is not only intermittent but also it has no day-average predictability, as winds can differ hour-to-hour as easily at night as during the day, adding an extra amount of irregularity to an already varying load. This suggests that plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) will be called on to perform, not only the more manageable regulation tasks, but also aid in providing peak power. As noted earlier, this might not find approval with PEV owners unless the pricing model is modified. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to ask whether a large PEV contracted fleet could perform this task on a national (US) level. Studies have shown that the answer is yes. With an overconfident 50% estimation for the market penetration of wind energy and 70 million PEVs available, peak power could be provided at the expense of approximately 7 kWh of battery energy per day or about 10%-20% of an average PEV reserve. © The Institution of Engineering and Technology 2016.