Ford program helps customers manage home energy—with help from EVs

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What if the car sitting in your driveway could become your own personal power plant?

That’s the question Ford aims to answer with its Home Power Management program, the next step in the automaker’s quest to sweeten EV ownership for its customers.

Ford said Tuesday that owners of the electric F-150 Lightning who buy the Ford Charging Station Pro and Home Integration System will be able to charge their truck with lower-cost electricity “in select markets where electricity rates change throughout the day.” Typically that’s overnight, when there’s less demand for electricity. Those users would then be able to use the energy stored in their truck’s battery to power their home when rates are higher.

The automaker is launching a pilot program with DTE Energy, a Detroit-based energy company, to test vehicle-to-home managed charging, starting with 15 Ford employees. DTE will compensate participants for sharing some of their vehicle’s battery capacity.

DTE’s grid will send notifications to ChargeScape, a vehicle-to-grid integration platform backed by Ford and other automakers, which will then communicate with the EV and manage its battery.

“We’re starting to move beyond the obvious perks of EV ownership—like instant torque and ditching gas stations—to potentially unlock new value: turning your F-150 Lightning vehicle into a smart personal power plant that can help you save money on your monthly electricity bills, and earn financial incentives from your participating electricity company,” Bill Crider, Ford’s head of global charging and energy services, wrote in a blog post.

How it works: Ryan O’Gorman, senior manager of Ford’s energy services business strategy and delivery, demonstrated how the technology works from the driveway of his suburban Detroit home, where he has an F-150 Lightning, a home charger, and Ford’s Home Integration System.

O’Gorman typically has his truck’s battery powering his home from 11am to 7pm. When there’s a power outage, the EV would disconnect from the grid, he explained, and the system would then kick in to power his house. He’s used it to power his home for days.

“Most people have some anxiety about how much range they’re going to lose, but I don’t think they have a comprehension of how big the battery is and how much your house uses,” he said.

“It’s about six miles per hour that you’re powering your house. So if you think about that, in a typical peak period that you might run is four or five hours, you’re talking maybe 20, 30 miles that you’re going to tick away off your truck. And when you have a 300-mile range truck…it’s not impactful.”

Ford estimates the average customer could save about $42 per month on their electricity bills.

The system, which users can control via the Ford Energy app, adjusts in real time to factors like battery health and electricity prices, and learns customer preferences like their typical daily departure time, according to Ford.

“Your car doesn’t do anything most of its life; 90% of its life, it’s just sitting. Now it’s working for you,” O’Gorman said. “It’s a unique utilization of the vehicle that you can’t do with other types of vehicles.”

Scaling up: Ford rolled out managed charging programs, later added backup power capability, and now is expanding the Home Power Management system. In the future, the automaker aims to scale up V2G tech that allows EV batteries to discharge energy back to the grid. Ford is running a V2G pilot using Home Power Management with a small group of Baltimore Gas & Electric customers.

V2G technology is still nascent and will require buy-in from utilities, but there’s lots of optimism about its potential to convert EVs into major grid assets.

“EVs have always been this villain,” O’Gorman said. “They’re not the problem. They’re actually going to solve the problem.”