Ford HIS is dead. Here's what F-150 Lightning + Charge Station Pro owners can actually do for V2H in 2026.

[unshortness]

Does the Sigenergy system work without the battery? Like can you buy just the gateway, controller/inverter, and the bidirectional DC charger and use the lightning as the only battery?

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[Eos Backup & Battery TX]

Does the Sigenergy system work without the battery? Like can you buy just the gateway, controller/inverter, and the bidirectional DC charger and use the lightning as the only battery?

Hey Petah, yeah, they work without a battery. Still needs a floor or wall base. But you can add a battery at a later date. Caveat it won't give you the advertised throughput because it supplemented itself with the stored energy from the battery. It's kind of like DEF fluid.

 

[Pitbull2o08]

I’ve been interested in sigenergy because it works with other EV’s as well. I just could never conceptualize what the install would look like on my wall. Do you have a photo of the single stack all complete on one wall?

 

[Eos Backup & Battery TX]

I’ve been interested in Sigenergy because it works with other EV’s as well. I just could never conceptualize what the install would look like on my wall. Do you have a photo of the single stack all complete on one wall?

No kidding about it being really flexible

 

[Newton]

If I had a battery system at home I think that I would simply hook the 7.2kW in the truck bed to the battery‘s charger when it was necessary. The mains connection could just be a plug, or you could go fancy and have a relay with utility power hardwired and a plug for the Lightning (biased towards utility power).

What are the disadvantages of that compared to a full bidirectional setup?

 

[Waffle]

Thank you for this write up and information. I’m working with a local solar company for a new solar and battery system and they recently started selling SigEnergy but don’t have many installs yet, so it’s good to see your confirmation of Sig. The features are compelling, especially for Ford Lightning owners. In addition to everything you mentioned, the SigEnergy 25kW charger is DC (unlike the Tesla home charger) so no loss due to DC to AC conversion.

 

[Eos Backup & Battery TX]

If I had a battery system at home I think that I would simply hook the 7.2kW in the truck bed to the battery‘s charger when it was necessary. The mains connection could just be a plug, or you could go fancy and have a relay with utility power hardwired and a plug for the Lightning (biased towards utility power).

What are the disadvantages of that compared to a full bidirectional setup?

if you go that route: when the truck supplies it, the propulsion system stays partially active to support the onboard inverter, cooling fans, pack thermal management, electronics cooling all kick on. So there's a parasitic draw beyond the actual load you're pulling.

 

[RLXXI]

if you go that route: when the truck supplies it, the propulsion system stays partially active to support the onboard inverter, cooling fans, pack thermal management, electronics cooling all kick on. So there's a parasitic draw beyond the actual load you're pulling.

Are you speaking of the older strategy where you have to leave the truck on all the time for ppob to work? The 25 ym you don't have to leave the truck on to use ppob.

 

[unshortness]

If I had a battery system at home I think that I would simply hook the 7.2kW in the truck bed to the battery‘s charger when it was necessary. The mains connection could just be a plug, or you could go fancy and have a relay with utility power hardwired and a plug for the Lightning (biased towards utility power).

What are the disadvantages of that compared to a full bidirectional setup?

My understanding is the bi-directional charger will work with all lightnings regardless of weather they have the 9.6kW ProPower, and also it can pull up to 25kW, when the plug in the bed is limited to 7.2kW. Those of us with larger peak electric loads can still take advantage of this. Also it can push / pull electricity back and forth whenever without you having to plug into the bed and turning the truck on.

Oh, but as the inverter is only rated for 11.5 kW even though the bi-directional DC charger is rated for 25 kW the only way to extract 25 kW from the lightning is to have Sigenergy batteries and charge them while also using the inverter.

I have a 2024 Flash without ProPower and on the coldest days my Heat Pump alone can pull more than 7.2 kW so I'm very interested in this, especially now that I know using a battery is optional and easily added later.

 

[tearitupsports]

My understanding is the bi-directional charger will work with all lightnings regardless of weather they have the 9.6kW ProPower, and also it can pull up to 25kW, when the plug in the bed is limited to 7.2kW. Those of us with larger peak electric loads can still take advantage of this. Also it can push / pull electricity back and forth whenever without you having to plug into the bed and turning the truck on.

Oh, but as the inverter is only rated for 11.5 kW even though the bi-directional DC charger is rated for 25 kW the only way to extract 25 kW from the lightning is to have Sigenergy batteries and charge them while also using the inverter.

I have a 2024 Flash without ProPower and on the coldest days my Heat Pump alone can pull more than 7.2 kW so I'm very interested in this, especially now that I know using a battery is optional and easily added later.

The Pro Power onboard cannot start large loads. It has absolutely no surge capacity.

As noted not all Lightnings have it either.

Sigenergy will work with any year and trim level of Lightning

Also as noted it should be considered 11.4kW for both charge and discharge. Sigenergy advertising 25kW is a gimmick and would be very short term requiring a sizable solar and/or battery capacity in the same inverter stack.

I love my Sigenergy system. It works amazingly well especially having come from a ProPower and then home integration solution. I have had all 3.

 

[Eos Backup & Battery TX]

Are you speaking of the older strategy where you have to leave the truck on all the time for ppob to work? The 25 ym you don't have to leave the truck on to use ppob.

Real improvement! Still a different layer. Whenever PPOB is actively supplying load, the truck still runs cooling fans, pack thermal management, and electronics cooling to support the onboard inverter doing the DC-to-AC conversion. The 2025 wakes that stack automatically instead of asking the driver to keep the truck on, but the loads themselves don't disappear; they're still pulling from the pack whenever AC is flowing off the bed outlet. So the UX is cleaner. The energy budget around what the truck consumes to deliver PPOB hasn't changed.

 

[ZSC100]

I could probably come up with a very affordable device to send the RS-485 signal to the FPCS to turn on the DC. Then anyone could use the DC for whatever they want. Would this be valuable to the community?

 

[RLXXI]

Real improvement! Still a different layer. Whenever PPOB is actively supplying load, the truck still runs cooling fans, pack thermal management, and electronics cooling to support the onboard inverter doing the DC-to-AC conversion. The 2025 wakes that stack automatically instead of asking the driver to keep the truck on, but the loads themselves don't disappear; they're still pulling from the pack whenever AC is flowing off the bed outlet. So the UX is cleaner. The energy budget around what the truck consumes to deliver PPOB hasn't changed.

Actually it has a button to slide to keep ppob on with truck off.

 

[RLXXI]

I could probably come up with a very affordable device to send the RS-485 signal to the FPCS to turn on the DC. Then anyone could use the DC for whatever they want. Would this be valuable to the community?

I'd have to say there's likely a lot of folx that would be interested in this, especially the ones that bought into that HIS and never got it working. I'm definitely interested in removing a step for powering my home which I do now via a solar inverter and rv shore power cable to the 240v outlet in the bed.

 

[Eos Backup & Battery TX]

Actually it has a button to slide to keep ppob on with truck off.

Good to know, report back with your findings when you test it

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