Making electric vehicles and the grid work together: A necessity for sustainable mobility [Editors’ Voice]

Abstract

The residential energy landscape is undergoing rapid transformation. In 2022, a record 700,000 U.S. homeowners installed solar, while nearly one in 10 cars purchased in the United States was an electrical vehicle (EV) ( Figure 1 ). In California, recent legislative reform incentivized the installation of home battery storage systems for load shifting, while Senate bill SB 233 requires that all EVs are capable of bidirectional charging. The bill was also designed to reverse a troubling trend: In recent years, Californians have increasingly responded to power outages and rolling blackouts by purchasing diesel-propelled backup generators. In contrast, some EV batteries now have the ability to power a home for up to three days and so are considered a “green” alternative to diesel generators. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Order No. 2222 has also increased the competitiveness of distributed energy resources (DERs) by enabling them to participate in regional wholesale markets through aggregations. Indeed, commercial equipment combining bidirectional EV charging and solar energy conversion that fully integrates with home battery storage can be leveraged as DERs. This can significantly improve grid reliability, while deferring costly infrastructure upgrades and enhancing decentralized resiliency by powering homes during blackouts.