Nation's First F-150 Lightning Vehicle-To-Home Grid Support Successful (Operated by Sunrun)

LabPower · Jul 24, 2024

The innovative program demonstrates how bidirectional electric vehicle charging can alleviate demand on the electrical grid and unlock additional value for participants

Sunrun now operating the nation’s first vehicle-to-home power plant with BGE.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/sunrun-launches-nation-first-vehicle-120000806.html

adoublee · Jul 24, 2024

Estimated at $800 for access to 488 hours of discharging. If every hour the vehicle is discharging a full 9.6kW, this is 4,685 kWh of energy supplied. That works out to ~$0.17/kWh of delivered energy.

Also, 12.5 years to pay back if not valuing resiliency benefits if it takes $10k to install, at the full $800 per year benefit estimate, unless getting a 30% tax credit on it which would make it 8.75 years.

LabPower · Jul 24, 2024

A few more details that either aren't in the press release or weren't clearly described.

While the inverter can accept 9.6Kw during a backup power situation, it can only accept half rate that during this Gird Offset mode. When it is in Grid Offset mode there is always at least a trickle coming in from the grid and will increase when house power usage exceeds that the truck can supply.

Currently Ford has a weekly cap of 50kWh to be transferred to the home in the Grid Offset mode.

Also, if it wasn't clear that is me in the picture. The first customer to get this working.

vvgogh · Jul 24, 2024

LabPower said:
Currently Ford has a weekly cap of 50kWh to be transferred to the home in the Grid Offset mode.

$800 / 16 weeks trial = $50 / wk
50 kWh limit / wk / $50 /wk = $1/kWh sold

How much does it cost to recharge from BGE in the off-peak hours? Maybe you could net an extra thousand dollars in a year assuming a slightly longer operational program during peak demand months.

TaxmanHog · Jul 24, 2024

I wonder how many HIS systems are functional and reliable enough to make this worth the effort?

Too many poor performance reports from our members who invested in the system just for home backup, never mind grid support.

Jake24 · Jul 24, 2024

TaxmanHog said:
I wonder how many HIS systems are functional & reliable enough to make this worth the effort?

Ford F-150 Lightning Nation's First F-150 Lightning Vehicle-To-Home Grid Support Successful (Operated by Sunrun) giphy

LabPower · Jul 24, 2024

TaxmanHog said:
I wonder how many HIS systems are functional and reliable enough to make this worth the effort?

Too many poor performance reports from our members who invested in the system just for home backup, never mind grid support.

That is a very valid question about the reliability of the existing HIS systems. I've had the HIS for backup power for almost 20 months now and it has gotten better but still has it's issues. Even when it is working as advertised, when a power outage occurs, it can take several minutes to detect it and supply power to the house.

The HIS works much better for this Grid Offset mode. At 5pm, it starts supplying power to the house and at 9pm it stops. During the switchover, there are no power fluctuations. The lights don't flicker and none of my multiple UPS's beep. I've been pleasantly surprised at how seamless the power switchover has been compared to the backup power mode.

LabPower · Jul 24, 2024

vvgogh said:
$800 / 16 weeks trial = $50 / wk
50 kWh limit / wk / $50 /wk = $1/kWh sold

How much does it cost to recharge from BGE in the off-peak hours? Maybe you could net an extra thousand dollars in a year assuming a slightly longer operational program during peak demand months.

Unfortunately, as part of this pilot I'm not able to take advantage of any off-peak discounted rates. The $800 mentioned in the article is just for the pilot period that ends in September. Future incentives will vary. It will be interesting once this all settles out what utilities will end up paying consumers to access the energy in their vehicles during peak Grid demand.

adoublee · Jul 24, 2024

LabPower said:
That is a very valid question about the reliability of the existing HIS systems. I've had the HIS for backup power for almost 20 months now and it has gotten better but still has it's issues. Even when it is working as advertised, when a power outage occurs, it can take several minutes to detect it and supply power to the house.

The HIS works much better for this Grid Offset mode. At 5pm, it starts supplying power to the house and at 9pm it stops. During the switchover, there are no power fluctuations. The lights don't flicker and none of my multiple UPS's beep. I've been pleasantly surprised at how seamless the power switchover has been compared to the backup power mode.

So does the HIS system just try to prevent you from importing from the grid and not send any power back into the grid, such that if your house is only consuming 1kW the HIS is only taking 1kW from the truck?

BTW, congrats on being in this program! Please stick around

Also, I'm guessing the HIS would be more widely adopted if it can be paid back with these services, at least to some extent. But, the local utility has to set up the marketplace.

LabPower · Jul 24, 2024

This pilot is just for providing power to the house and not to the Grid, but it's easy to see with this success that Vehicle to Grid will be next.

BhamDCam · Jul 24, 2024

I cannot wait until products like the HIS (but with greater reliability and lower cost) are more prevalent. Probably gonna be a while before that's the case though. Hopefully Ford will open up the software for 3rd party products at that time.

But to charge my truck at a discounted rate and then powering my house during peak demand periods and have it seemlessly switch back and forth is a dream of mine.

TaxmanHog · Jul 24, 2024

LabPower said:
This pilot is just for providing power to the house and not to the Grid, but it's easy to see with this success that Vehicle to Grid will be next.

Ahhhhhh, I misunderstood the opening post.

PreservedSwine · Jul 24, 2024

Why would anyone use their 30k-40k battery as a powerwall for the grid?

I can see using it as a power wall for your own home, but the grid?

EDIT

I misread the op- I don’t realize it was just for your own home.

Also, 4 hours a day = $200/month?

Maybe I’m missing something, but that doesn’t seem right? Is that figure per person, or divided among all participants?
How did they arrive at that figure?

MaintGrl · Jul 25, 2024

LabPower said:
That is a very valid question about the reliability of the existing HIS systems. I've had the HIS for backup power for almost 20 months now and it has gotten better but still has it's issues. Even when it is working as advertised, when a power outage occurs, it can take several minutes to detect it and supply power to the house.

The HIS works much better for this Grid Offset mode. At 5pm, it starts supplying power to the house and at 9pm it stops. During the switchover, there are no power fluctuations. The lights don't flicker and none of my multiple UPS's beep. I've been pleasantly surprised at how seamless the power switchover has been compared to the backup power mode.

Hum, Thank you, while I do not have a 98kWh back up battery, I'll take my SunPower Battery system any day . . minutes for the system to know it's w/o power? Huh

With my system, you NEVER know there's a power outage unless your looking at the batteries when the power goes out . .and . . .the truck can be running errands somewhere else at the time of the power outage,,,,

frost22 · Jul 25, 2024

PreservedSwine said:
Why would anyone use their 30k-40k battery as a powerwall for the grid?

I can see using it as a power wall for your own home, but the grid?

EDIT I misread the op- I don’t realize it was just for your own home.

Also, 4 hours a day = $200/month?

Maybe I’m missing something, but that doesn’t seem right? Is that figure per person, or divided among all participants?
How did they arrive at that figure?

For $$$$

Nation's First F-150 Lightning Vehicle-To-Home Grid Support Successful (Operated by Sunrun)

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