SYDNEY (Reuters) – The University of Queensland, Australia on Wednesday announced that it will hire Tesla Inc owners (NASDAQ:) around the world in order to determine if the car’s extra battery can support the energy grid as well as powering homes in the future.

Teslascope, an analytics platform that allows for data collection and analysis on electric vehicles (EVs), has joined the university to support this research project.

The first phase will be open to Tesla owners from Australia, Canada, Norway and Sweden. This program could eventually be extended to other electric vehicle manufacturers.

Scientists are exploring how batteries could provide cleaner energy and help reduce emissions from the transportation industry, as there is an increasing number of electric cars worldwide.

UQ researchers found that most EVs can be driven less than one eighth of their daily range, which is approximately 400km (249 miles). This gives them the opportunity to export energy to the grid and store it using vehicle-togrid (V2G), chargers.

“(The study) will not only help to inform EV policy internationally, but importantly assess the feasibility of using EVs as batteries-on-wheels,” Jake Whitehead, Research Fellow at UQ, told Reuters.

V2G technology connects the EV to the grid. Through this connection, power can flow from grid to vehicle or vice versa. It could enable car owners and utility companies to trade energy with the network.

It will first recruit 500 Tesla owners. The vehicle’s software interface will record usage and users will get a Teslascope premium subscription for free for one year.

Australia has pledged A$178 million (132 million dollars) last week to increase the number of charging stations for electric cars, without setting any targets regarding petrol car elimination.