This story was originally published byGrist.
They were like, How do you have power?
Other manufacturers have been slower to roll out the technology.
Photo: Drew Angerer (Getty Images)
Tesla, for example, says its carswill be bidirectional by 2025.
Climate events and growing power demand increasingly stress the states energy supplies.
Utilities sometimesshut down power lines to prevent ignitionwhen wildfire danger is high.
The solutions to these outages often rely on fossil fuels that only exacerbate the underlying causes.
said Kurt Johnson, community energy resilience director at the California nonprofit The Climate Center.
Even the smallest commonly available EV battery is a multi-day energy storage asset for everybody, said Johnson.
A Nissan Leaf can run your house for days.
That number isprojected to reach 8 million by 2030.
All of those cars would have a total capacity of 80 gigawatts of power, according to Johnson.
The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, an auto-industry advocacy group, opposes the bill.
The organization estimates that the technology could add about $3,300 to a vehicles cost.
The bidirectional charger approved for use with the Leaf manages the batterys levels to preserve battery life.
That was too expensive for Bowe.
It cost him $1,500.
Were not even effectively interconnecting stationary batteries, much less mobile batteries, said Johnson.
While a few California utilities have begunvehicle-to-grid pilot projects, no official programs exist yet.
He said that SB 233 is meant to be a starting point.
So it all starts with the vehicles.
This article originally appeared inGristathttps://grist.org/energy/a-california-bill-could-help-make-evs-a-blackout-solution/.
Grist is a nonprofit, independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future.
News from the future, delivered to your present.
