GCC: CPUC approves $11.7M for three new PG&E vehicle-to-grid pilots

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GRA

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I debated putting this in the "Government subsidies/perks/mandates for EVs" topic or the "EVSE/Charging Equipment and Networks" sub-forum, but decided this belonged here by itself. If a mod thinks otherwise, feel free to move.
GCC: https://www.greencarcongress.com/2022/05/20220506-pge.html


. . . PG&E will test bidirectional charging technology in a variety of settings, including in homes, businesses and with local microgrids in select high fire-threat districts (HFTDs). The pilots will test the ability for the EV to send power back to the grid and provide power to customers during an outage. PG&E expects its findings will help determine how to maximize the cost-effectiveness of bidirectional charging technology in providing a variety of customer and grid services.

The new pilots are separate and in addition to the collaborations announced in March with both General Motors (earlier post) and Ford Motor Company (earlier post), and will help to inform the Department of Energy Memorandum of Understanding that PG&E and a collaboration of industry, government and labor leaders signed in April focused on accelerating “vehicle-to-everything” technologies.

Each of the new pilot programs offers a financial incentive for participating customers and additional benefits for those in disadvantaged communities. All three are expected to be available to customers in 2022 and 2023 and continue until incentives run out. PG&E expects customers will be able to enroll in the home and business pilots in late summer 2022. . . .

The approved pilot programs:

V2X Residential Pilot ($7.5 million). The V2X Residential Pilot will focus on spurring adoption of V2X (bidirectional technologies) for 1,000 single-family residential customers with light-duty EVs by 2023. Residential customers will receive at least $2,500 for enrolling, and up to an additional $2,175 depending on their participation.

The pilot would seek to demonstrate V2X light-duty EVs and show how this technology can reduce the total cost of EV ownership once barriers are overcome. The pilot will seek to prove out five value-streams: backup power in 2022; followed by customer bill management, system real-time energy, system renewable integration and EV export for grid services (such as system resource adequacy, system capacity) in 2023.

V2X Commercial Pilot ($2.7 million). The pilot with business customers will explore how medium- and heavy-duty and possibly light-duty EVs at commercial facilities could help customers and the electric grid in various ways. These include providing backup power to the building if the power is out, optimizing EV charging and discharging to support the deferral of distribution grid upgrades, and aligning EV charging and discharging with the real-time cost of energy procurement. This pilot will be open to approximately 200 business customers who will receive at least $2,500 for enrolling, and up to an additional $3,625 depending on their participation.

V2M Public Safety Power Shutoff Microgrid Pilot ($1.5 million). The microgrid pilot will explore how EVs—both light-duty and medium- to heavy-duty—plugged into community microgrids can support community resiliency during Public Safety Power Shutoff events. Customers will be able to discharge their EVs to the community microgrid to support temporary power or charge from the microgrid if there is excess power.

Following initial lab testing, this pilot will be open to up to 200 customers with EVs who are located in High Fire-Threat District (HFTD) locations that contain compatible microgrids used during Public Safety Power Shutoff events. Customers will receive at least $2,500 for enrolling, and up to an additional $3,750 depending on their participation.

PG&E has submitted a fourth proposed pilot focused on creating ways for EVs to participate in CAISO markets; this was rejected by the CPUC in its current form.
 
The pilots will test the ability for the EV to send power back to the grid and provide power to customers during an outage.

Huh. During an actual outage, I would expect an EV to be just as helpless as a grid-tied inverter. No grid, no export. The idea is not to fry electrical workers who expect a piece of cable to be dead, and would not be if inverters (solar and EV) were allowed to export into apparently dead cable.

Besides, a typical transformer (here in Australia anyway) is around 300+ kVA, a bit much for even the largest present EVs to get started. But I hope that they learn something actually useful from this project. Hopefully there are cases I haven't thought of, or "outage" doesn't mean what I think it does. For example, it could mean "power is available, but near its limits due to a partial infrastructure outage".
 
^^^ I think you're conflating two separate things: "sending power back to the grid" and "provide power to customers* during an outage".

*Customers in this case referring to an individual home or a micro-grid after the grid is offline. For the reason you state, you don't want the distribution lines live during an outage. Systems with storage use automatic transfer switches to isolate themselves when the grid goes down, and either manually or automatically transfer back when grid power is back online.

In this case the storage happens to be mobile, but ISTM the main purpose here is to demonstrate the practicality of using distributed vehicle batteries to absorb excess generation and then supply surges or peak demand, instead of using one or more big storage sites controlled by and paid for by the utility or grid operator. Aside from technical feasibility, the issue will be whether enough people will be willing to allow their car batteries to be remotely cycled this way, and how they will be compensated for doing so.
 
Ah of course, my bad. I interpreted the part I quoted as being one feature, but of course they mean two separate features.

I agree that the main feature would be the first one, supporting the grid when needed or desirable.
 
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