Sunrun is now operating a vehicle-to-home power plant using a small group of customer-owned bidirectional electric vehicles in Maryland.
The program includes three Sunrun customers in Baltimore Gas and Electric Company (BGE) service territory who own an F-150 Lightning paired with Ford Charge Station Pro and Home Integration System, which is sold exclusively through Sunrun. This program is the first operational bidirectional electric vehicle power plant in the United States that uses a cohort of customer vehicles.
“This exciting partnership lays the foundation for the power grid of the future where electric vehicle owners can contribute to grid resiliency and utility price stability for everyone,” said Sunrun CEO Mary Powell. “The summer heat can be especially stressful on our power grid, which is why proving the use of stored energy in electric vehicles for capacity is so important.”
BGE was awarded grant funding from the Dept. of Energy to create an electric vehicle virtual power plant. BGE partnered with Sunrun to develop and administer the program, which is designed to assist BGE’s system during times of peak energy consumption. By discharging F-150 Lightnings’ onboard batteries directly to participants’ homes, the program showcases how electric vehicles can function like stationary batteries to reduce demand on the grid and create a more resilient and reliable energy system for all BGE customers in Maryland.
Sunrun is networking and monitoring the enrolled F-150 Lightning trucks as they share stored energy during dispatch windows from June 1 to September 30, 2024, between the hours of 5 p.m. and 9 p.m. on weekdays. All funding will flow to enrolled customers, who will receive a payment based on the amount of energy shared — estimated to be $800 over the four months of the program.
“We know that the power stored in electric vehicles will be essential in our state’s effort to achieve its bold net-zero emissions goals,” said Mark Case, Vice President of Regulatory Policy and Strategy at BGE. “Partnering with Sunrun will allow BGE to unlock and learn the potential of how vehicle-to-grid programs will support increasing grid efficiency and reliability with distributed energy resources, while providing a valuable new benefit to customers.”
In addition to demonstrating vehicle-to-home capabilities, the program’s goals also include learning the behaviors and preferences of electric vehicle owners. Based on insights gained, Sunrun and BGE plan to explore expanding the program, offering incentives for existing F-150 Lightning owners to adopt bidirectional charging and developing direct, vehicle-to-grid capabilities so that energy from electric vehicles can be shared throughout a community.
“BGE and Ford have been amazing partners. This program combines each organization’s core strengths for the benefit of all ratepayers — that’s the beauty of this joint collaboration,” said Chris Rauscher, Sunrun’s Head of Grid Services. “Virtual power plants with bidirectional electric vehicles will play a key role in the clean energy transition. We look forward to scaling these innovative programs with BGE and other utilities around the country.”
News item from Sunrun
The mention of a Sunrun home energy system is the tell of the technology stack needed to functionally connect a “bidirectional” BEV to allow TOU grid services or off grid home back up in resiliency mode if say an ice storm takes down the local feeder or in areas like California a PSPS is invoked and it could last for hours and has lasted in the past for at least 3 days. Some of the articles claims are suspicious at best. The claims are with a full battery pack and an “average” of 30kWh a day usage this looks like 1.25kWh constant for 24 hours in a day. The claim is also 10 days if one is using power shedding software to allow only 375Wh for 24 hours a day. Basically one is supposed to DO 3 days with 90kWh of battery pack available at an average of 1.25kWh per hour continuous and 9000kWh/day for a continuous 375Wh per hour. Yeah, use the IRA ITC install solar PV on your roof and a smart hybrid interactive string inverter with automatic transfer switch, the hook up the vehicle local inverter with perhaps 7.2kW of output into the smart inverter, if or when the home battery runs down to around 30% SoC, then start up the hybrid A.C. battery charger function in the inverter and feed vehicle energy into the house battery to keep it charged up longer, How big of a house battery connected to solar PV would you need? I’d say easy from 20kWh to 40kWh and larger if you can afford it.
Of course one is talking about a $75K to $85K F150 Lightning from Flash to Lariat and another $10K for the Sunrun system, but with minimal battery storage. IF one can float $85K for a BEV truck, then another $42K for the home system with 40kWh energy storage and around 16kWp roof array would serve better, with the vehicle battery pack as the last resort. Just sayin’. What price does one put on energy security? I’d imagine there’s some folks in California and in Texas that are asking themselves this after a storm or wild fire that flares up on any given day.