GM will expand vehicle-to-home (V2H) bidirectional charging technology across its retail portfolio of Ultium-based electric vehicles by model year 2026. The first vehicles to receive the technology include the previously announced 2024 Chevrolet Silverado EV RST, followed by the 2024 GMC Sierra EV Denali Edition 1, 2024 Chevrolet Blazer EV, 2024 Chevrolet Equinox EV, 2024 Cadillac LYRIQ and the upcoming Cadillac ESCALADE IQ, which will be revealed on Aug. 9.
Building on the company’s plan to deliver a growing suite of energy management products and services through GM Energy, V2H unlocks additional value for EV drivers, who will be able to transfer energy from their vehicles to a properly equipped home when desired. The technology allows consumers to store and transfer energy to help offset electricity needs during peak demand days and mitigate the impact of power outages, making the transition to an all-electric future even more compelling.
Lisa, our ageing experimental Nissan LEAF, was conveying us towards a visit to the seaside in Exmouth when she popped into Exeter Services for a quick “splash and dash” charging session. Sadly it was not to be:
There’s nothing quick or dashing about waiting in the queue for a vacant Gridserve CHAdeMO charging connector. Especially when there’s a Tesla at the head of that queue, and there seems to be a vacancy in the adjacent serried ranks of Tesla superchargers:
Renault have released more details about the forthcoming Renault 5, and it’s excellent news to our ears:
The future electric Renault 5 will be Renault’s first car to come with a bidirectional on-board charger.
Over the years we have covered at some length Renault’s experiments with ZOEs modified to include bi-directional capabilities, and we are pleased to hear that AC V2G will finally be going into production in the shape of the new Renault 5.
A previous press release revealed the external shape of the new R5 outside Stade Roland Garros:
Now we get to see the internals too! According to Renault:
Commercial vehicle customers looking to future-proof their business operations and transition to zero emission motoring now have an exciting new option, following the launch of the electric Nissan Townstar van.
The Townstar EV builds on the success of the e-NV200, Nissan’s previous all-electric compact van and a former UK best-seller, which was designed with business owners’ needs in mind:
The electric Townstar was first announced in September 2021, but it seems that at long last it is possible to order one here in the United Kingdom:
We have previously reported on several occasions about power outages across California at the height of summer. By contrast today we report on outages in the midst of winter.
On Tuesday the United States’ National Weather Service’s San Francisco Bay area office issued a warning for high winds:
Note in particular the part about “damage to trees and power lines”. By Tuesday evening Pacific Gas and Electric had announced on their web site that:
As of 10 p.m., approximately 154,000 customers are without power in PG&E’s service area as heavy northwest winds impact electric equipment. More than 124,000 customers have been restored since 6 a.m.
PG&E crews will continue working through the night, safely and as quickly as possible to restore customers.
The NWS’s Weather Prediction Center also issued the following short term forecast for Wednesday:
A major winter storm is expected to deliver a large swath of heavy snow from the West Coast to the Northeast through Thursday…
The arrival of a large arctic air mass from Canada interacting with two energetic troughs/fronts forecast to move through the western half of the country will bring numerous weather hazards and highly anomalous temperatures coast-to-coast this week with almost all of the country experiencing some form of notable weather.
Yesterday morning the United Kingdom’s Met Office issued a press release about the impending arrival of a disruptive weather system:
A low-pressure system which will bring high winds and rain to parts of the UK has been named Storm Otto by the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI).
Storm Otto will move east across the far north of the UK from the early hours of Friday morning, likely bringing gusts in excess of 75mph to some northern areas.
Met Office Chief Meteorologist Andy Page said: “Storm Otto will bring high winds and rain to the UK, with some northern parts of Scotland and the northeast of England likely to get the strongest gusts of wind, possibly in excess of 75mph. Warnings have been issued and could be updated as Storm Otto develops.
“There’s a chance of travel disruption and high-sided vehicles could be particularly prone to disrupted plans in this set-up. There’s associated rain with Storm Otto, with 40-50 mm of rain likely to fall over parts of western Scotland.”
Potential impacts highlighted in the warning also the likelihood of large waves, especially in North Sea coasts, as well as a chance of some damage to buildings and infrastructure.
This was accompanied by a weather warning for high winds from Storm Otto:
It has just been brought to my attention that at the beginning of this month Enphase Energy issued a press release announcing that:
Enphase Energy, Inc., a global energy technology company and the world’s leading supplier of microinverter-based solar and battery systems, announced today a successful demonstration of its bidirectional EV charger enabling vehicle-to-home (V2H) and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) functionality.
This product will leverage the power of grid-forming IQ8™ Microinverters and Ensemble™ energy management technology to seamlessly integrate into Enphase® home energy systems. In addition, Enphase’s bidirectional EV charger is expected to work with most EVs that support standards such as CCS (Combined Charging System) and CHAdeMO (a Japanese charging standard).
Here too is a still image from the video, which once again looks remarkably reminiscent of the decade old V2G UK banner at the top of this article!
The press release continues:
In addition to charging an EV, Enphase’s bidirectional charger will support the following functionality:
Vehicle-to-home (V2H) –enables the EV battery to provide uninterrupted power to a home during a power outage. Vehicle-to-grid (V2G) –allows the EV battery to share energy with the grid to help relieve the strain on electric utilities during times of peak energy demand. Green charging –sends clean solar energy directly to the EV battery.
Raghu Belur, co-founder and chief products officer at Enphase Energy, said that:
The new bidirectional EV charger, along with Enphase’s solar and battery storage system, can be controlled from the Enphase App, empowering homeowners to make, use, save, and sell their own power. We are working with standards organizations, EV manufacturers, and regulators to bring this charger to market in 2024.”
Since I sit on numerous EV (dis)charging and energy management standard development committees it would be very interesting to discover precisely which “standards organizations, EV manufacturers, and regulators” Enphase is working with!
Mohammad Alkuran, Ph.D., senior director of systems engineering at Enphase Energy, added that:
“ The Enphase bidirectional EV charger is the next step on our roadmap to building a solar-powered, all-in-one home energy system that further unlocks electrification, resilience, savings, and control for homeowners. This product will be a game changer for homeowners who want maximum control over their energy usage.”
For those of us that are more technically inclined Enphase Energy has also published a white paper about their bidirectional EV charger. Here’s an extract:
The Enphase Bidirectional EV Charger is part of the Ensemble energy management technology, which is the heart of the Enphase® Energy System™. The Enphase Energy System is a complete solution that produces, stores, monitors, exports, controls, and analyzes the energy in your home.
To achieve this, Enphase Energy System brings solar, batteries, other energy resources like generators, fuel cells, connected appliances and software together in one complete package so that a homeowner can make, use, save, and sell their own power—all through the Enphase mobile app.
Enphase has pioneered power conversion devices called IQ8™ Microinverters. These microinverters are best-in class power electronics components that convert power and comply with standards like UL 1741 for grid reliability functions and IEEE 1547 for interconnection of distributed energy resources (DER). These microinverters can create their own grid, also known as microgrid. They can operate in on-grid mode (as grid-tied) and off-grid mode (creating a microgrid). Enphase microinverter technology is at the forefront of the grid interface for our solar microinverters, storage batteries, and EV chargers.
The Enphase Bidirectional EV Charger leverages Enphase’s IQ Microinverter technology and IQ™ Battery architecture. When the charger is used with a vehicle that supports bidirectional charging, it enables the transfer of power and communication between the Enphase Energy System and the EV. The combination of the EV and the bidirectional charger is similar to an Enphase IQ Battery and can be controlled in an equivalent fashion.
The use of the terms “grid-forming” and “microgrid” is of particular interest to yours truly, since not all V2x charging stations are so well endowed.
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.
In a press release yesterday eVan/eBus manufacturer Arrival announced that:
Scaling production in the Bicester microfactory requires significant further investment in hard tooling and working capital and the Company has determined that the benefits of such an investment would be best directed to the US market.
As a result, today the Company announced a plan to restructure its business to focus resources on a family of Van products for the US market as well as its enabling technologies – including core components, composite materials, mobile robotics, and software-defined factories. The Company will continue to produce a small number of Vans in Bicester to optimize microfactory processes and support trials with customers.
The major factors in the Company’s decision to shift focus to developing its US business included the tax credit recently announced as part of the Inflation Reduction Act – expected to offer between $7,500 to $40,000 for commercial vehicles, the large addressable market size, and substantially better margins.
The business plans to raise capital to fund the commercialization of these vehicle programs in the US and is exploring all funding and strategic opportunities needed to bring the Vans designed for the US into production at the company’s second Microfactory in Charlotte, North Carolina.
In order to extend the company’s cash runway, Arrival plans to further right-size the organization and cut cash intensive activities while continuing to advance its core technologies. The result of these proposals is expected to have a sizable impact on the Company’s global workforce, predominantly in the UK.
By way of some additional explanation of Arrival’s announcement, here is a chart of their share price since listing on the NASDAQ exchange:
Back in March General Motors announced a vehicle-to-home pilot project in partnership with Pacific Gas and Electric. According to Mary Barra:
Bi-directional charging will help when there’s a power outage or additional demand, to really help supply energy and keep everybody having the energy they need to live their lives.
Now the next phase of General Motors’ master plan to beat Tesla at the energy game has been announced, in a press release yesterday:
The introduction of Ultium Home and Ultium Commercial, which in combination with the existing Ultium Charge 360, create a holistic ecosystem of energy management products and services that will be housed under a new business unit called GM Energy.
GM Energy’s connected product and service offerings are designed to offer cohesive energy management for home, commercial and EV customers, with solutions ranging from bi-directional charging, vehicle-to-home (V2H) and vehicle-to-grid (V2G) applications, to stationary storage, solar products, software applications, cloud management tools, microgrid solutions, hydrogen fuel cells and more. GM Energy’s services will also enable the sale of energy from EV and stationary storage batteries back to utilities during peak, high energy consumption periods, unlocking even more potential value for customers and increasing resiliency for the electrical grid.
Several large-scale companies across the U.S. have already agreed to work with GM Energy to provide energy solutions to customers and receive product or service offerings.
Among them is an agreement with SunPower, one of the nation’s leading solar technology and energy services providers. Together, the two companies will develop and offer customers a home energy system which will consist of integrated EV and battery solutions, solar panels and home energy storage. A primary feature of the home energy system is expected to enable drivers to deliver power to their homes with the battery in their compatible electric vehicle, designed to give them the ability to power their home’s necessities in a blackout or draw from stored energy during peak rate times. SunPower will also become a preferred installer for the home energy system and offer customers the opportunity to add solar to their home. The home energy system will be available alongside the retail launch of the 2024 Chevrolet Silverado EV, expected to begin production in fall 2023.
Tesla have of course yet to announce any plans for “the sale of energy from EV batteries”, but Tesla Energy predates GM Energy by several years. Will General Motors be able to catch up and overtake Tesla? Perhaps V2x technology will give GM an edge? Alternatively perhaps Tesla will also be offering V2x on their EVs by the time the 2024 Chevrolet Silverado EV starts production?
