What If Your EV Could Power Your Home During a Blackout?

It was a football game on TV that sparked Nancy Skinner's interest in bidirectional charging, an emerging technology that allows an EV's battery to not just soak up energy but to discharge it, too — to a home, to other cars or even back to the utility grid.

"There was a commercial for the Ford F-150 truck," recalls Skinner, a California state senator who represents San Francisco's East Bay. "This guy is driving up to the mountains and plugs his truck into a cabin. Not to charge the truck, but to power the cabin."

With its 98-kWh battery, an F-150 Lightning can keep the power on for up to three days. That could be extremely useful in California, which has seen nearly 100 substantial outages in the last five years, more than any other state except Texas. In September 2022, a 10-day heat wave saw California's power grid reach an all-time high of more than 52,000 megawatts, nearly knocking the electric grid offline.

In January, Skinner introduced Senate Bill 233, which would require all electric cars, light-duty trucks and school buses sold in California to support bidirectional charging by model year 2030 — five years before the state is set to ban the sale of new gas-powered cars. A mandate for bidirectional charging would ensure that carmakers "can't just put a premium price on a feature," said Skinner.

"Everyone has to have it," she added. "If they choose to utilize it to help offset high electricity prices, or to power their home during a blackout, they'll have that option."

For the full report, click here.