The new 2024 Silverado EV signaled Chevrolet’s motion to join the electric pickup race. General Motors designed the Silverado EV as easy to charge from various sources. The opposite is true; the pickup can also charge other EVs and power up household appliances. Nevertheless, the Silverado EV and its electric siblings has a more elaborate ambition — to serve as an on-demand power source for homes within the service area of Pacific Gas and Electric Company.
Collaboration Employs On Bidirectional Charging Tech
A combined natural gas and electric utility, PG&E serves more than 16 million people across 70,000 square miles in Northern and Central California. Nevertheless, some natural or even unnatural conditions may cut power off the electric grid, causing homes to lose electricity for some time. During such times, EVs could help.
GM already offers EVs with bidirectional charging technology. In the Silverado EV, the PowerBase charging system — along with an available accessory power bar — allows the pickup truck to provide up to 10.2 kW of all-electric power for powering up work sites or homes. The collaboration between PG&E and GM will pilot use of its EVs to safely power the essential needs of a properly equipped home during an outage.
GM EVs To Power Homes During Outage
The partners will test the pilot’s first vehicle-to-home capable EV and charger in the summer of 2022. Involving multiple GM EVs, the pilot will employ both bidirectional hardware and software-defined communication protocols. These elements will automatically coordinate PG&E’s electric supply with the EV and the home. This way, a charged EV can power a home within PG&E’s service area.
Once PG&E and GM complete the lab tests, they will test vehicle-to-home interconnection to enable a certain number of customers’ homes to automatically receive power from GM’s EV as soon as power flow stops from the grid. This field test should allow the partners to develop a user-friendly vehicle-to-home customer experience that employs this new technology.
Larger customer trials should occur by the end of 2022.
Pilot Involves Multiple Homes And Multiple EVs
Ford offers a similar bidirectional power technology that should allow its new F-150 Lightning to provide electricity to customers’ home during outages. While the F-150 Lightning offers up to 9.6 kW, the Silverado EV can provide up to 10.2 kW.
GM’s collaboration with PG&E, however, involves multiple EVs to power up multiple homes in a certain location. GM’s EV would not just serve as a backup power option at home, but also a resource for the electric grid.
Source: GM