New CA law may soon require two-way charging on EVs

It's an exciting week for grid resiliency-lovers in California, as Gov. Gavin Newsom followed up on his previous Smart Grid Act and signed another law this week that could require bidirectional charging on EVs in the future — though the legislation doesn't have a hard deadline attached, so we'll stick with it. It may be a time to see that happen.

Bidirectional charging refers to the ability of electric vehicles to not only draw electricity from the grid to charge, but output Electricity in various forms, whether from the vehicle to the load (plugging into a device like the 1.8 kW capacity in the Kia Niro EV), from the car to the home (like Ford's “Intelligent Backup Power” system), or from the vehicle to the grid (like the Nissan Leaf).

While these applications may seem like a party trick, the widespread use of bidirectional charging can lead to huge benefits for efficiency, grid resilience, and enable much greater penetration of renewable electricity generation.

While most electric grids don't really have a problem meeting the regular day-to-day needs of electricity customers, things become difficult when large spikes occur. Either on a hot day when everyone is using air-conditioning, or on a day when power generation stops for some reason, the situation becomes difficult.

And as climate change makes temperatures hotter, California's grid is often overtaxed on the hottest summer days, which are becoming more numerous. Worse, methane-burning fossil gas peaker plants are California's most-polluting form of electricity, and they are currently used at peak times to cope with high demand.

One solution to this problem is to add energy storage to the grid that can be dispatched when needed and fill in when the grid supplies excess electricity. This helps balance the supply and demand of electricity and makes everything a little more predictable.

That's why there's been a push for grid-based storage like the Tesla Megapack, which represents a major source of fast-dispatchable energy storage.

But there's another source of grid-connected batteries that's been under our noses the whole time: electric cars.

EVs, which are mostly connected to the Internet, can be used as a distributed energy storage device, and even called upon to help provide electricity when the grid is needed. We've already seen this happen with virtual power plants based on fixed storage, but if cars have V2G, cars could theoretically contribute in the same way – both saving the grid and possibly making some money through arbitrage for their owners (it's cheaper when buying electricity and sell it when it's expensive).

The problem is, many automakers haven't included V2G capabilities in their vehicles and vehicles to do As it is, many manufacturers have not made V2G-capable equipment and those that are there is Bilt doesn't see that many customers are willing to spend the extra money to upgrade their electrical systems with V2G-enabled equipment.

So everything has to be jumpstarted, and California thinks it might have the stuff.

New CA Law May Require Bidirectional Charges… Finally.

The idea began in 2023 when state senator Nancy Skinner introduced a bill that would require two-way charging of EVs by 2027.

As the bill moved through the legislative process, it watered down from that ambitious timeline. So the current form of the bill, now called SB 59, strips away that timeline and instead allows the California Energy Commission (CEC) to proceed with issuing a requirement whenever they see fit.

The bill directs the CEC, the California Air Resources Board and the California Public Utilities Commission to examine use cases for two-way charging, and empowers EVs to require certain weight classes to be two-way-capable if mandatory use cases exist.

The state has already estimated that integrating EVs into the grid could save $1 billion annually, so there's certainly a use case, but the question is the cost and urgency of building those vehicles into the grid.

The reason it's not done right away is that cars take time to design, and while adding two-way charging to an EV isn't the most difficult process, it becomes really useful with a whole ecosystem of services around the car.

Even Tesla, which has touted itself as a technology/energy company for years and sells Powerwalls, inverters, solar panels and more, is still slowly rolling out its two-way PowerShare feature to its vehicles.

And that ecosystem has been a bit of a hard sell so far. It's all well and good to tell someone they can make $500/year by selling energy to the grid, but then you have to convince them to buy more expensive charging units and keep their car plugged in all the time, while someone else manages the energy savings. Some consumers might push back against this, so part of CEC's job is to wait to pull the trigger until it's clear that people are actually interested in end-user use cases for V2G – otherwise, features that no one needs. Not going to use

Tech by Electrek

Given all these implications, we don't expect CA to require two-way charges anytime soon But it still gives the state a strong trigger to pull in, if other efforts, such as the recently signed Smart Grid Act, work like California's, to grow, clean, And At the same time make its grid more affordable.

But having the force of law behind it could make V2G less of a parlor trick and more of a real difference that us EV nerds have been dreaming about for decades (true story: Electric Once Margot turned Robbie down for an interview and instead talked to some engineers about V2G for an hour).

So, telling manufacturers that California may soon start mandating two-way charging means that these manufacturers will likely start taking V2G more seriously, especially given the size and influence of CA's vehicle market. Although CEC Dr no Make it a requirement, the threat of it eventually becoming one means that EV-makers will probably start preparing for it regardless.

There is no real point at which a single person discharges their car into the grid, but when millions of With cars involved, you can work to flatten the famous “duck curve,” which describes the imbalance between electricity supply and demand. We hear a lot about “intermittency” as a wind and solar problem, and grid storage as the solution, so being able to turn on gigawatt-hours worth of installed storage capacity immediately should help solve that problem. And we hope this legislation will help us move a little closer to that possible future

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