BMW and utility company Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) have begun testing technology that would allow electric vehicles to add to the grid.
According to BMW’s press release, testing is taking place at the PG&E laboratory in San Roman, California, as part of a partnership between the two companies that began in 2015. BMW and PG&E have previously had offers incentives to customers who charge their electric vehicles at a time when renewables make up a larger share of the power generation mix.
According to BMW, the current pilot program “is assessing how a typical home can maximize its use of renewable energy by switching between renewable energy stored in EV batteries and renewable energy.” generated by the power grid”.
BMW i4 2023
According to BMW, the test results show that a BMW i4 eDrive40 is capable of providing about 140 kWh of grid storage per day, with the ability to store and return 27 kWh of renewable energy to the grid. That’s about double the amount of renewable energy a typical California household uses in a day.
This program has evolved from charge forwarding, BMW told Green Car Reports. It’s BMW’s program to help i3 EV drivers charge at times that match their local grid.
2022 BMW i4 M50
According to BMW, results to date show that drawing power from an EV battery – sometimes referred to as a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) system – increases the amount of renewable energy used. BMW claims that connecting an EV to a home allows for nearly twice the amount of renewable energy that a typical California household could use in an average day.
This is especially relevant for California residents, as about 40% of all U.S. electric vehicles are now on California roads, BMW notes.
BMW and PG&E plan to continue the pilot program with a “real test” at BMW’s office in Mountain View, California, and a fleet of vehicles equipped to operate V2G. BMW notes that it has extended its partnership to March 2026, but commercialization of the technology being tested could be even further. A California can requires two-way charging in the new EV could accelerate that.
2023 BMW iX xDrive50
PG&E already has some pilots two-way charging, involving 1,000 residential customers and hundreds of commercial customers. Technology can be especially well combined with solar energypeaks each day just before the greatest home energy demand, giving electric vehicle owners some degree of independence from the grid.
However, to date, Ford is the only automaker to offer a comprehensive package that allows F-150 Lightning to overcome power failure effectively.
