General Motors is piloting using its cars as on-demand power sources for homes in California.
Working with the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, GM is planning to test its electric vehicles as bi-directional chargers to help power homes, improving electric resiliency and reliability.
“We are really excited about this innovative collaboration with GM. Imagine a future where everyone is driving an electric vehicle — and where that EV serves as a backup power option at home and more broadly as a resource for the grid. Not only is this a huge advancement for electric reliability and climate resiliency, it’s yet another advantage of clean-powered EVs, which are so important in our collective battle against climate change,” says PG&E Corporation CEO Patti Poppe.
The two companies will start testing vehicle-to-home charging by this Summer.
The pilot will include bi-directional hardware, coupled with software-defined communications protocols that will let power flow from the EV into a customer’s home while automatically coordinating between the car, home, and PG&E’s electricity supply.
After lab testing is complete, the companies will use a small subset of customer homes to safely receive power from EVs when power from the grid ceases.
Larger customer trials are expected to open up before the end of this year.
“GM’s collaboration with PG&E further expands our electrification strategy, demonstrating our EVs as reliable mobile sources of power. Our teams are working to rapidly scale this pilot and bring bidirectional charging technology to our customers,” says GM Chair and CEO Mary Barra.
As electric vehicles become more commonplace, energy storage is becoming a growing cause for concern in some circles. Eurocell CEO Recardo Bruins, for example, told Auto Futures last week:
“In 2025, a six o’clock in the afternoon, when people get home from work and they all plug in to charge overnight, the strain on the electricity grid will be massive and it was never designed for that.
“In order to prevent blackouts, a multi-billion investment is required to upgrade the energy transmission network. I think the only real solution is to put batteries on people’s homes, in offices, and at the end-user stage.”
Whether using electric vehicles works as a long-term solution for the problem, however, remains to be seen.
Keyword: GM to Test Using Its EVs to Power Homes