We love Volvo for their innovation. They were the first to use 3-point safety belts, and the quality and reliability of their cars can’t be denied. And when they start talking about having bidirectional charging capability available as standard on their forthcoming 2024 EX90, we wanted to know more. Though Volvo certainly isn’t the first car manufacturer to express their interest in exploring bidirectional charging, they certainly won’t be the last. As much as we love the rumble and roar or a fully gas engine, the winds of change are pushing us towards an all-electric future. An all-electric future that means relying more on our strained and aging electric infrastructure. Bidirectional charging is one way that automakers and energy managers see to help handle the increasing needs of a connected world.
Bidirectional Charging Removes Strain From the Grid
Here’s the short version: when its peak hours, why not use your car to power your house?
Here’s the long one: when you have an electric car, you use electrical energy from an outlet (a Level 1 120v charger, Level 2 240v charger, or a DC fast charger that ranges from 200-600v) to charge up the battery that powers your car. It takes a not insignificant amount of energy to charge those (expensive) batteries to power that car. And when it comes to the energy grid, there are times when significantly more energy is used than others.
Not only is more energy used in general during peak hours, but your energy provider might charge you more for your power during that peak time. Think about it this way, when you come home after work you are probably doing things that take up extra energy like watching tv, drying a load of laundry or running the dishwasher. So is everyone else in your neighborhood. But when it is 3am, there are going to be a lot fewer people up and hogging the energy. So why not use your EV for what it is—a big battery—during these peak hours?
Bidirectional Charging Could Lower Your Electric Bill
The idea is that your electric vehicle’s giant battery can be charged during off-peak hours, and then be plugged in as a generator to power the house whenever you wanted. This can reduce strain on the electric grid, and if the vehicle is only charged in the wee hours of the morning, potentially reduce your electric bill. It can also be helpful in the case of a storm or power outage. If your EV has some juice, just plug it in to the house and you won’t have to worry about the stuff in the freezer going rotten.
Let’s Start At the Beginning: Simple V2L Charging
There are 3 main types of bidirectional charging. V2H and V2G are still in relatively early stages of development—more about them later—but V2L or Vehicle to Load charging is something that is offered in a few cars on the market today. Despite being grouped with the concept of bidirectional charging, V2L doesn’t actually require a bidirectional charger—more on those later too. If your car has V2L charging, it means that your car is a battery powered generator. The car has a few electrical outlets and you run an extension cord from your car to your fridge (or whatever it is your want powered) and you are good to go. Not an elegant long-term solution, but great for power outages and camping.
The Ford F-150 Lightning, Kia EV6, and Hyundai Ioniq 5 are examples of cars currently out on the market with V2L capability. And European brands are also getting in on this idea, with the forthcoming MG ZS EV and all of VW’s new ID models having this capability.
Here’s Where It Gets Tricky: V2H Bidirectional Charging
The concept of V2L, or Vehicle to Home, charging is simple enough. You use your car as a big battery to power your house, similar to how an off-grid home uses stored solar energy for later use when the sun is down. Transferring the power from your car back to your home safely is where most of the problem lies.
Your car runs on DC power. Your house (in the US) runs on AC power. And though it’s easy enough to plug your car into an AC outlet to charge it up, it’s a bit more complicated to put it back into AC to run your home. This is where the concept of an actual bidirectional charger comes in. This piece of equipment can charge your car, but will also be able to siphon the power from your car to power your house—so the power can move in two directions. It will need to be professionally installed by an electrician into your home to make sure it doesn’t mess with the electrical grid at large—or burn your house down. V2H technology doesn’t work without the installation of one of these bidirectional chargers.
The Early Stages of a Technology: V2H Is Still Evolving
What makes V2H even more complicated is that, as with the advent of any new technology, there really isn’t a standard for it yet—think of the 80’s tech battle over Betamax and VHS. Though there are several companies working on universal bidirectional chargers, many haven’t hit the market yet, and automakers keep working on their own proprietary charging stations. This means that there is no guarantee that the Charge Station Pro that Ford developed for their F-150 Lightning will be compatible with the hardware and software in Volvo’s EX90. If the bidirectional chargers aren’t universally compatible, buying a new car might also include the installation cost of a new bidirectional charger tacked on.
Into the Future: V2G To Help Support the Electrical Grid
The third and most complicated type of bidirectional charging is V2G, or Vehicle to Grid. Like the other two, it uses the battery power from your car to power something else, in this case, taking the power from your car to support the electrical grid in those peak hours. In theory, this would function similarly to how people with solar can sell their excess power to the power company. Again, this is something that is in relatively early stages of production, and would require a specialized bidirectional charger that supports this function, and a pretty in depth level of management between the car, the grid, and the person who might suddenly decide to go to the store for a gallon of milk.
Welcoming the Future: Making Your EV Earn Its Keep
Though each of these technologies are quite new they are interesting ways to manage the increasing demands on the energy grid. Gone are the days where your car is merely used to take you from location to another. We are intrigued to see what Volvo’s bidirectional charging station will look like, what it’s capabilities will be, and how it will work with the new EX90.
