In a press release yesterday the Pacific Gas and Electric Company announced that:

PG&E has received approval to establish the nation’s first “vehicle-to-grid” export compensation mechanism for commercial electric vehicle charging customers in its California service area. The V2G export rate promotes EV adoption by providing upfront incentives to help commercial customers offset fleet costs and delivers an innovative solution for these vehicles to export power back to support the grid during peak energy demand periods.

The groundbreaking settlement agreement with the Vehicle-Grid Integration Council (VGIC), Electrify America LLC and the Public Advocates Office at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) was adopted by the CPUC on Oct. 20, 2022. The rate is expected to increase participation from V2G school buses and other electric vehicles in response to near-real-time grid conditions and will be available to charging equipment paired with stationary energy storage systems, which can support the grid and provide backup power to charge vehicles during grid outages.

More than 420,000 EVs have been sold in PG&E’s service area, representing one in six EVs in the country. As large vehicles like school buses and commercial fleets continue to electrify, the opportunity grows for these vehicles to serve as crucial, flexible grid resources to support a more reliable, affordable and efficient energy system. Greater volumes of these vehicles on the road comes at a critical time, as peak energy demand challenges California’s grid and novel solutions like V2G emerge…

As part of PG&E’s 2030 targets, the company is aiming to proactively prepare the grid for 12,000 GWh of EV-related electric load and improve processes to enable rapid, safe EV energization and interconnection. It’s also working to enable 2 million EVs to participate in vehicle-grid integration applications, allowing EVs to be a cornerstone of both reliability and resilience.