On Wednesday, Ford Motor Company joined Sunrun and Maryland power company BGE to launch the nation’s first ever vehicle-to-home charging program
The companies said they would be piloting a program in Maryland that would allow electric vehicle owners to power their home from their vehicle’s battery in parallel with the electric grid. Using the Ford F-150 Lightning truck and the Sunrun Home Integration Systems, the pilot will allow BGE customers to run their homes off of their EV truck’s battery during electric system peak hours, reducing energy use and air pollution while lowering electricity costs for participating customers.
Brian Foreman, a BGE customer, is the first customer in the country to use the pilot program and will draw energy from his F-150 Lightning truck into his home on a set schedule.
“In the future, electric vehicles will make the grid more resilient for all, including non-electric vehicle owners,” said Foreman. “This new program gives me the opportunity to provide feedback to the companies and organizations responsible for developing, deploying, and improving the infrastructure necessary to electrify the transportation sector.”
Foreman said he relies on the home integration system to discharge he truck’s battery during specific hours on summer weekdays when grid demand is higher. Technology from Sunrun and Ford takes advantage of the interconnection with BGE to allow the F-150 Lightning battery to work in concert with his home’s electric service. The grid can supplement any load to his home that is greater than what his car can supply, officials said. Previously, the electric truck could only serve as a backup energy source in a power outage.
“We know that the power stored in electric vehicles will be essential in our state’s effort to achieve its bold net-zero emissions goals,” Mark Case, vice president of Regulatory Policy and Strategy at BGE, said. “Insights from Mr. Foreman’s and other customers’ experiences will help BGE unlock and learn the potential of how vehicle-to-home and vehicle-to-grid programs will support increasing grid efficiency and reliability with distributed energy resources, while providing a valuable new benefit to customers.”
The pilot program comes in advance of target dates in the DRIVE Act, which will require BGE to submit a pilot proposal to the Maryland Public Service Commission to use vehicle-to-grid technology. BGE’s vehicle-to-grid pilot program will enroll and gather data from a small number of customers who own and F-150 Lightning paired with Ford Intelligent backup Power – a Ford Charge Station Pro connected to the Sunrun Home Integration System. Insights gained from the pilot plan will help guide the companies expand the program, offer incentives for other F-150 Lightning owners to adopt bidirectional charging and develop direct vehicle-to-grid capabilities to allow energy from electric vehicle to be shared throughout the community, officials said.