What Is EV Bidirectional Charging?
Reading Time: 4 minutesPower your gear, light up your home, charge another EV, and more!
Electric vehicle technology has advanced over the past few years. We now have self-driving electric vehicles and superchargers that can recharge the battery from 0% to 80% in less than 20 minutes. In fact, the latest electric vehicles can do more than that by deploying as a power backup during an outage.
But how does it work? Let’s find out!
What Is Bidirectional or Two-Way Charging?
Bidirectional or two-way charging allows your electric vehicle to receive and supply electrical current. In other words, an EV with bidirectional charging won’t just turn the alternating current (AC) from your wall plug to direct current (DC) to charge it; it can also turn the stored energy in its battery from DC to AC to power your home or other devices when you need it.
Why Use Two-Way EV Charging?
The primary purpose of bidirectional EV charging is to supply electricity to your home during an outage. As long as your EV’s battery has sufficient capacity, you can discharge power back to your home when needed. It’s a like having a Tesla Powerwall battery in your electric vehicle that you can rely on to light up your home during a power outage.
Besides, you can recharge your electric vehicle during off-peak hours when electricity is cheaper and use it to power your home during high-demand hours when electricity is more expensive.
This means you can use an EV with bidirectional charging to reduce your electricity bill significantly. Alternatively, you can sell surplus power back to the grid, helping you cover the cost of solar panel installation if you have them.
Of course, if you have an electric vehicle with two-way charging, you could use it to recharge another EV. This is a useful feature to help someone stranded with an electric car at a low charge with no charging station nearby.
But if you frequently experience power interruptions, consider getting these must-have devices when the power goes out.
Types of Bidirectional Charging
If your EV has bidirectional charging, it doesn’t automatically mean it can power your home. You have to check its type of bidirectional charging to ensure that you’re not overloading your EV or its vehicles.
So, before you go plugging everything into your electric car, read its manual first and see which type of bidirectional charging it supports.
Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V)
Vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) two-way charging is designed to recharge other EVs. It’s much easier to implement since the electrical current doesn’t need to be converted from DC to AC.
Vehicle to Load (V2L)
EVs with vehicle-to-load (V2L) bidirectional charging are designed with sockets to recharge other small devices. More succinctly, you can use an electric vehicle with a V2L adapter to power your camping devices, such as an air fryer, smartphone, ice maker, coffee machine, Bluetooth speaker, or laptop.
The best electric vehicles for Overlanding and other similar activities will typically have V2L bidirectional charging, helping you camp in convenience.
Vehicle To Home (V2H)
Vehicle to home (V2H) bidirectional charging system is used to power your home during a blackout. To put it into perspective, a V2H electric vehicle won’t just light up your home but also power your TV, refrigerator, microwave, and other big appliances.
Vehicle To Grid (V2G)
Vehicle to Grid (V2G) bidirectional chargers can discharge electricity directly to the grid. If you have an EV with V2G, you could sell renewable energy from your car to the power grid or even supply electricity to your neighbors in case of a power disruption.
Which EVs Have Bidirectional Charging?
Not many electric vehicles currently have V2H or V2G systems. However, the Ford F-150 Lightning comes with a V2H bidirectional charging system that can discharge electricity to your home in case of a power interruption.
Another electric vehicle with bidirectional charging that can discharge power to your home is the Nissan Leaf—it can also supply electricity to the grid. Nevertheless, you must install bidirectional chargers at your house to connect to your F-150 Lightning or Nissan Leaf during a power blackout.
If you own a Nissan Leaf, you’re required to install a Fermata Energy FE-15 charger. Similarly, if you own the F-150 Lightning, you must install a V2H bidirectional charging system from Sunrun.
Beyond that, other electric vehicles like Rivian R1T, Kia EV6, and Hyundai Ioniq 5 are equipped with V2L AC outlets to power your devices. V2V bidirectional charging is also expected to be one of the features of the Tesla Cybertruck.
That’s because it is designed to recharge the Tesla Cyberquad electric ATV when you load it on the truck bed.
How Long Could an EV With Bidirectional Charging Power My Home?
According to Ford, the F-150 Lightning trim with the longest range is enough to back up an average home for three days during a power outage. If you reduce high power consumption devices in your home, it could discharge in up to 10 days.
In contrast with a single unit of 13.5 kWh Tesla Powerwall battery, the F-150 Lightning Pro standard range trim comes with a 98 kWh battery—equivalent to seven units of Tesla Powerwall batteries.
On the other hand, the Nissan Leaf has a battery capacity of 40 kWh and 62 kWh. Although it won’t power your home longer than an F-150 Lightning would, it’s still more than enough to deliver electricity to your house for more than 24 hours.
Other electric vehicles with V2L can’t supply electricity to your home, but they can run most electronic devices at home through their built-in AC outlet and some extension cords. How long your EV battery lasts depends on the power consumption of your electrical appliances.
EV Bidirectional Charging Is the Future
Over the next decade, we expect more electric vehicles to come with two-way charging systems to light up your home during a power outage. Even better, EVs with bidirectional chargers could be integrated with solar panels, allowing you to get solar power into your home via your solar car. Not to mention, you can recharge other EVs (V2V) and power electrical appliances (V2L) using bidirectional charging systems.
With improving battery technologies and EVs going cheaper, bidirectional charging in EVs could allow us to have mobile power banks for our homes in the future.
Reference: https://www.makeuseof.com/what-is-ev-bidirectional-charging/
Ref: makeuseof
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