Bidirectional Charging: Turning Electric Vehicles into Energy Assets

Did you know, you can power your home using only your car?! That is, if you have an electric vehicle (EV) with bidirectional charging capabilities. No need for a backup generator when there’s a power outage—with bidirectional charging, your EV can serve as a backup generator on wheels. Can your current backup generator drive you to work? Probably not!

Bidirectional charging transforms EVs from mere modes of transportation into powerful energy assets. Drive Electric Minnesota created a new fact sheet on bidirectional charging that explains its applications, including vehicle-to-home, vehicle-to-building, vehicle-to-grid, and vehicle-to-load. The fact sheet highlights the differences between bidirectional and smart charging, lists EVs currently supporting bidirectional charging, and outlines the benefits, such as cost savings, increased energy resilience, and renewable energy integration.

Examples of the technology:

• Vehicle-to-home: powering a home during an outage
• Vehicle-to-building: powering a building during an outage, for example, a hospital
• Vehicle-to-grid: a fleet of school buses sending power to the grid when not in use
• Vehicle-to-load: supplying power to products that plug-in

As one particularly interesting example, with vehicle-to-load capabilities, you can power things like crockpots, cotton-candy machines, band equipment, work tools, and pancake griddles. Anything that plugs in, really!

I’ll take a side of pancakes with that energy resilience, thank you very much. And thank you, bidirectional charging!

Read on to learn more about this technology →