TheWild ™ Posted May 10, 2024 Posted May 10, 2024 GM Energy demonstrated its EV-as-home-power-supply tech by cutting the electricity at a Beverly Hills mansion outfitted with its new bidirectional charging equipment. The lights went out momentarily while the home switched from grid power to juice supplied by a 2024 Chevrolet Silverado EV RST First Edition in the garage. The system is available now and will be joined by a GM Energy battery backup module later this year. With the exception of some reclusive cabin dwellers, it's not often that a homeowner happily cuts their domicile off from the electrical grid. And while that's not likely to be a regular occurrence, GM Energy did just that to show how one of its EVs can power a home in the event of an outage, real or otherwise. The General Motors subsidiary is now marketing a V2H (vehicle-to-home) bidirectional charging system. Similar to the one Ford offers for the F-150 Lightning electric pickup, GM Energy’s solution can automatically switch a house from grid power to EV-supplied juice—provided the EV is at home and plugged in, of course. The system works with the RST model of the Chevy Silverado EV now, and support is forthcoming for 2024 models of Chevrolet's Equinox and Blazer EVs, the GMC Sierra EV Denali, and the Cadillac Lyriq. We noticed that the first UItium-based EVs, the GMC Hummer SUV and Hummer pickup, are absent from this list. The chief engineer for the GM Energy system tells us these models could gain support at a later date through a software update, but none is promised as of yet. The system starts with the GM Energy PowerShift Charger. GM EV owners can buy this as a stand-alone unit for normal Level 2 home-to-vehicle charging; enabling V2H requires the aptly named V2H Enablement Kit, which consists of a power inverter, a home hub, and a dark start battery. (More fun with branding: If you're wondering what happened to the Ultium label these charging stations were supposed to wear, we were too. GM reps tell us the Ultium name is being reserved for the EV architecture technology, while GM Energy will be the name on its home and commercial power products.) Where Can Equipment Go? Just about Anywhere Why aren't those items packaged as one unit? We're told this is to allow for flexibility in locating each component. Because every home's layout and wiring is different, this allows the owner and installer to situate the system's parts where they make the most sense. They're all weatherproof and can be located indoors or out, and in many cases can be hidden in a utility room or somewhere they won't normally be seen. How It Works In normal circumstances when grid power is flowing, the dark start battery is trickle charging to keep itself topped up. Once the power goes out, it kicks into action, providing low-voltage power to the rest of the system, allowing them to communicate with one another and tell the EV to start shifting its power to the home. The PowerShift charging unit essentially runs in reverse, supplying power to the inverter, which then feeds the home hub with AC that it distributes to the home's circuits. When the system is installed—GM has partnered with Qmerit to handle that job—you can decide whether the whole house gets backup power or only certain circuits. The equipment can supply up to 9.6 kW of power, which is plenty to keep the essentials running in most homes—even a 10,000-square-foot Beverly Hills mansion, apparently. The changeover takes a matter of seconds from the lights going out to them coming back on again. In between, LEDs on the various components come alive thanks to the dark state battery, the clicking of relays can be heard as the hub locks out the connection to the grid and routes the supply from the EV to the home's circuits, and then you're back in business. The only hint that the home is on EV power is the near-imperceptible sound of the various components, which GM says emit less than 50 dB of noise, equivalent to the volume of a whisper. https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a60755806/gm-energy-ev-charging-for-home/
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