Unpredictable weather conditions continue to prompt consumers, especially electric vehicle shoppers, to prioritize features such as vehicle-to-load and vehicle-to-home so they can power essential devices in a power outage. However, there’s also a push to get all the stationary EVs in driveways to add power to the grid. Five companies—Eversource, National Grid, EnergyHub, Sunrun and The Mobility House—on Thursday announced a joint effort to test vehicle-to-grid (V2G) for a program called ConnectedSolutions. The program, which will let customers sell their stored energy back to the grid during peak periods, is expected to involve 60 customers. Massachusetts has some of the highest electricity costs in the U.S., at 34 cents per kWh or roughly $310 per month as of last week, according to EnergySage. That translates to an estimated 66% higher than the national average. And while New England might not be considered to be a prime EV market given the winter climate, ConnectedSolutions says there are at least 150,000 electric vehicles currently registered in the state and still expects that number to rise.
“Electric cars and buses with bidirectional charging have a valuable capability to provide emergency back up power and vehicle-to-grid,” Russell Vare, Vice President of Vehicle-Grid Integration at The Mobility House North America, said in a statement Thursday.
