Storing Lower-Cost Energy in Your Lightning to Power Your Home and Returning Power Back to the Grid

[NW Ontario Ford Lightning]

I prefer to store excess Solar in the Truck battery and NEVER sell it back to the utility - they don't pay enough.
I wonder if those big data centres are getting discount prices for grid power and "guess who" is getting price increases to offset those discounted prices...

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[K6CCC]

Time of Use rates here in California have changed due to the large increase in solar production. When I first installed my solar (and was forced onto a TOU rate) in 2018, Peak rate was (if I remember right) 1000 - 1600, Off Peak 0800 - 1000 and 1600 - 1800, and Super Off Peak was 1800 - 0800. I may be off a little there, but that's close to the times. That made sense because traditionally peak utility load was middle of the day and early afternoon. Peak loads were driven by air conditioning. Now Peak is 1600 - 2100 and Off Peak is 2100 - 1600. Now, because of so much solar generation, Peak load is late afternoon and early evening when solar production falls way off, and everyone is getting home from work, turning on their AC and cooking dinner. During the week my peak rate is about 2.5 times the off peak rate. On the weekends, the peak is only about 2 times the off peak rate. Needless to say, I don't charge my truck from 1600 - 2100! Not really an issue...

I'm in southern California and my utility is Southern California Edison. Sure wish I still got the 25% employee discount - when I worked for them...

 

[mr.Magoo]

I wonder if those big data centres are getting discount prices for grid power and "guess who" is getting price increases to offset those discounted prices...

Is there any situation in a market/capitalist economy where price isn't (to some extent) driven by volume ?

 

[NW Ontario Ford Lightning]

Is there any situation in a market/capitalist economy where price isn't (to some extent) driven by volume ?

Yes.
ToU rates are lower and come with lower volume.

 

[FloridaMan655321]

So the thing that I see with this is today it's 10k, sure, and yes people have issues, but lets say it was 5k and worked perfectly and you never knew your house lost power? Now 2k? This could get really interesting and I'm glad people are testing now.

 

[hajalie24]

I have powerwalls and in less than a decade they'll pay for themselves thanks to exporting during peak hours and 1:1 net metering.

I love the idea of your vehicle making you passive money as well while parked. How cool is that. Hopefully it becomes more mainstream.

 

[Maxx]

I wonder if this is widely used, it would lead to change the battery warranty from years to cycles.

 

[Schroederhc1]

Ford Release 10/28/25

Your Next Side Hustle Might Come from Your Parked Electric Vehicle

What if your F-150 Lightning®truck didn't just get you to work, but worked for you while it was parked at home?

An electric vehicle can be more than just your daily driver; with the right tools, it can be a partner in your home energy management, giving your electric truck a side hustle that can help benefit your wallet while also helping to reduce electricity demand when usage is at its highest.


Storing Lower-Cost Energy in Your F-150 Lightning to Power Your Home and Returning Power Back to the Grid

We're starting to move beyond the obvious perks of electric vehicle ownership — like instant torque and ditching gas stations — to potentially unlock new value: turning your F-150 Lightning truck into a smart personal power plant that can help you save money on your monthly electricity bills, and earn financial incentives from your participating utility.

Ford is already working with utilities nationwide to offer charging programs like Ford Energy Rewards, where customers can earn financial rewards from their participating utility for off-peak charging.

We also have Home Backup Power, which turns your F-150 Lightning into a backup generator for your house when there are scheduled outages or rolling blackouts.

Now, with Ford Home Power Management, in select markets where electricity rates change throughout the day, customers that purchase the Ford Charging Station Pro, Home Integration System, and Home Power Management software can charge their F-150 Lightning with lower cost electricity — often overnight during off-peak hours — and then use that stored energy to power their home at a later time when grid electricity rates are higher during peak hours.1

The system can also go one step further, allowing customers to return power back to the grid, potentially earning customers financial incentives from their local utility.


Customers enjoy their day without interruption as the system works seamlessly in the background.


And the savings are real. Some customers can save up to an estimated $42 per month or around $500 per year by using Ford’s Home Power Management software with the available Home Integration System.2


But the savings could be even more depending on your local utility program. For example, with TXU Energy in Texas, Ford F-150 Lightning pickup drivers could potentially save an average of $900 per year with TXU Free EV Miles.3


And, of course, any time a customer needs their vehicle or wants to drive somewhere, they can simply unplug or use the Ford Energy app to stop the flow of power from their F-150 Lightning to the home. Customers are always in control of their electric vehicle's battery energy.


New Pilot Program: DTE Energy and Ford Home Power Management

Ford and Michigan-based DTE Energy have launched a new Vehicle-to-Home Managed Charging Program starting with a limited group of Ford employees that have an F-150 Lightning, Ford Charging Station Pro, and the Home Integration System.


DTE Energy will pay these eligible participants in its Southeast Michigan coverage area for transferring their electric vehicle battery power to their home to reduce the household’s electricity usage during periods of high demand.


This DTE Energy program, one of the first in the country to compensate electric vehicle owners for sharing a portion of their battery’s capacity with their utility using the available Home Integration System, is designed to help ensure long-term grid reliability.

And it's completely automated. DTE Energy’s power grid will send notifications to ChargeScape, the Ford-backed vehicle-to-grid integration platform, to schedule and optimize the use of Ford employees’ electric vehicle batteries to power their homes.


The Home Integration System will seamlessly manage your F-150 Lightning's battery to send power to your home. Ford schedules the charge and transfer cycles to help optimize battery health, while making sure the vehicle has enough charge to get to where you need to go.


The valuable insights from these pilot programs are being built directly into our next-gen products to serve customers even better.


Check out how some of our early adopter customers are using Home Power Management:


Customer Spotlight: Peter Schneider, Burlington, Vermont

Peter, an energy expert with prior experience in home battery rollouts, worked with Ford to test Home Power Management.

Already a Home Backup Power user, his deep understanding of energy management made him an ideal collaborator.

This past summer, when extreme heat pushed the eastern grid to alert-level demand, Peter's F-150 Lightning demonstrated its critical role.

When his truck was plugged in at home, he successfully provided over 8 kWh daily of electricity on average from his truck, actively managing his home's energy use and reducing strain on the grid during peak times.


Customer Spotlight: Brian and Christy Foreman, Highland, Maryland

For Brian, seeing the devastating 2021 Texas power outages caused by Arctic-like weather was a wake-up call, prompting him and his wife to invest in a 2022 F-150 Lightning and Home Integration System for a source of backup power.

His experience made him a prime candidate for testing Home Power Management with his electricity provider, Baltimore Gas and Electric (BG&E).

In June 2024, Brian became the first customer to successfully power his home during peak grid hours from the electricity stored in the F-150 Lightning.

The story evolved further in July 2025 when Brian joined a new pilot program between BG&E and Sunrun. Beyond powering his home, his F-150 Lightning returned power to the grid. When his truck was plugged in, he transferred on average 23.5 kWh daily.

This pilot was the first-ever residential vehicle-to-grid distributed power plant, where an electricity company transfers energy from a vehicle.

Brian was among two other customers in the BG&E program who were paid a higher rate by BG&E — up to $1,000 — for the energy their trucks transferred during peak demand. This turned his parked F-150 Lightning into a cash-maker,not just a potential cost-saver, when the vehicle was transferring energy.






Powering the Future

Home Power Management is transforming the relationship between our customers, their vehicles, and the grid. While the potential is immense, we recognize that widespread adoption requires addressing key challenges, such as reducing upfront costs and ensuring a truly seamless, intuitive experience for every customer.


That's precisely why Ford is investing in this work today — collaborating with electricity providers, advocating for supportive policies, and refining our technologies — to make these advanced energy solutions accessible and effortless for all, and to potentially help create a more resilient and sustainable future, powered by Ford vehicles.

What a load of BS I've been trying to get this to work for almost two years and Ford has just ignored me and many others. Boy they have some balls to make this post.

 

[tearitupsports]

The Ford HIS system is $3800, and the charger is about $1400. The HIS includes a solar/battery hybrid inverter (as well as the input from the truck). It also includes a 200A automatic transfer switch. It is actually quite a similar price to other systems that are out there such as EG4, Sol-Ark, etc. These are the numbers that should be used when comparing to the $500 generator inlet solution. The HIS also works with trucks that do not have Pro-Power 240V 30A outlet. It also works in addition to the pro-power, so you can use both at once.

One issue is that most people had their systems installed by Sunrun, who has a pretty high install cost. This is where the $10k - $15k cost come from. If comparing against a home backup generator capable of going 3+ days, it probably ends up being fairly similar in cost.

The other main issue is that this system only works for the Ford Lightning. It will not work on any other current or future vehicle.

There of course is a bad history of the system not working at all for people, but I feel that if all the firmware is update on all parts of the system, it is now working. The exception is that most of the time the automatic transfer still does not work if the truck is in sleep mode (inactive for more than 30 minutes).

With all that being said, this program is not really enough to get anyone excited. First and foremost, it only works if you go through Sunrun. It is them, not Ford, who is in charge of the system.

There are a lot better offers now on the market, and others "soon" to come. Sigenergy is the best one available now, and it can do all the features mentioned here, and more.

Full disclosure: I own the Ford HIS and installed it as a DIY project. My system does work, and I feel the inverter and transfer switch components are of good quality. Unfortunately there are just other systems out there that are better. They have features such as instant (no flicker) transfer of power off-grid, better scalability, ethernet (not RS485 serial) communication, and more control/monitoring features.

 

[RickLightning]

Hopefully the backup power transfer meter hardware that PG&E in Northern CA installs for free (currently) can be made more widely available and be modified to work as a power on demand system rather than only working when the grid is down. As members may recall, a Ford rep popped into the relevant thread on the BPTM and asked for feedback about 5 months ago. I spoke with her and is sounds like they are looking into that option -- hopefully this is something they can deliver in the next couple of years a reasonable price with hardware and installation. Then a program like this would make a lot more sense.

The Generlink device is quite simple, in that for it to allow power to flow from the vehicle to the home, the feed from the utility must be off.

"Save up to...."

Generally speaking, peak rates are mid-week and during business hours.

So I wonder what a more realistic savings is for someone who doesn't work from home and use their truck to commute to work. (ie. theres no truck available to supply the house/grid during these peak hours).

While I applaud the effort and technical advancements, the practical use and realistic savings doesn't seem like it would ever justify the investment.

One of the key realizations by many is that the truck has to be parked at the home, and plugged in (and charged to a high enough level to be used).

When we evaluated putting in a whole house natural gas generator in 2021, after cost (versus the Ford system we anticipated having in a year), the realization that if you are using the truck you have no backup hit home. Months later, we were in Florida with the Mach-E (easily could have been the truck had we owned it then) when we had a multi-day outage at home. No truck, no power. Whole house generator ran just fine. Unlimited (but expensive) power supply.

When I contacted Sunrun here in NorCal about the Home Integration System, I was told that a typical installation runs $14k, provided there's no need to upgrade the main panel. If there is, and there would be in my case, that's an additional $4k-$5k (in their estimate).

On top of all that, Ford didn't give me the bi-directional Ford Charge Station Pro, they gave me a coupon for a free Emporia charger. The FCSP is $1,400 retail.

So, for me, implementing my truck as automatic home backup power using Ford's system would cost me a cool $20k.

(I get that the Emporia charger is a good AC home charger, but it's not bidirectional. So much for Ford's "Power Promise." I'm just going to pull some extension cords to the PPO when we have the next outage.)

Ford Power Promise says nothing about which charger you get. Initially they used up their excess supply of Charge Station Pros (due to Lightning sales being below their initial expectations). They then switched to the Ford Connected Charge Station, but seemed to quickly switch to Emporia, perhaps in certain markets?

Of course the cost of installation of HIS varies by market, and California is one of the most expensive markets in the country.

If you want a Charge Station Pro (doesn't seem like you do), $700 or less and you can easily buy one, maybe closer to $500.

 

[doggod]

I live off grid so only solar and batteries. I can use my electric trucks to power the house and charge the batteries during long periods without sun. we have a 6kwh charge point charger in town that cost $.25 a kwh. the lightning and Cybertruck can be plugged directly into my EG4 inverter. this year I plugged in 2 times when we had 2 weeks without sun. usually even in low light days we get enough charge to power house thru the night.

 

[SpaceEVDriver]

There are so many limitations to using the truck for automated battery backup that I would rather spend the $5-10k on a whole-home battery backup that’s always available. We currently have 24 kWh of backup and 14 kW of solar. We rarely use grid energy and often sell it back at the most expensive times of day (for a measly fixed rate b/c legislated utility monopolies). And we can charge the EVs with excess solar.

When we have an extended outage, we can use the 7.2 kVA outlet in the bed of the Lightning to supplement the permanent battery backup.

 

[doggod]

I have 60kwh of battery in the house. never had a problem using the trucks as power supply. I have app for inverter which tells me when state of charge is low. so I have time to plug in. biggest issue is plugs in truck need to be turned on and Ford has to be running. Tesla just has to have plugs turned on. house batteries are very inexpensive now.
https://yixiangpower.com/products/p...y-cellchina-stock?sca_ref=9207522.jYuzmwEjUpH
under $2k for 15 kwh battery.

 

[VTbuckeye]

Yes we may all have to go with solar panels and battery storage when the AI boom starts making electricity from the utility a luxury only the rich can afford, lol.

Pretty sure I would not want to give up my truck for that purpose. But for some maybe a solution.

And EVs will be blamed for the high cost of electricity. 5 years ago they were saying the grid couldn't handle the EV load. Data centers will soon be using more power than EVs. In my current searches they say that data centers will consume 10 percent of us energy annually and that a 100 percent electric household vehicle fleet would consume 4.6 times to he projected 2025 data center consumption.
That is such a BS number. First the US household fleet is NOT 100 percent EV (if the fleet was 22 percent EV, then it would equal 2025 data center consumption). Second data center consumption is predicted to rise substantially in the near future. *Unfortunately this information was looked up online, probably adding further demand to a data center somewhere...

 

[chl]

And EVs will be blamed for the high cost of electricity. 5 years ago they were saying the grid couldn't handle the EV load. Data centers will soon be using more power than EVs. In my current searches they say that data centers will consume 10 percent of us energy annually and that a 100 percent electric household vehicle fleet would consume 4.6 times to he projected 2025 data center consumption.
That is such a BS number. First the US household fleet is NOT 100 percent EV (if the fleet was 22 percent EV, then it would equal 2025 data center consumption). Second data center consumption is predicted to rise substantially in the near future. *Unfortunately this information was looked up online, probably adding further demand to a data center somewhere...

And who controls the search engines and AI searches?
The folks building the data centers...

What could go wrong?

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