For years now, Ford has been forging relationships with energy providers with an eye toward an ambitious goal – using electric vehicles as a way to support the grid. Just this past July, those efforts culminated with the very first vehicle-to-home powerplant program in Maryland, where Ford EV owners will be paid for providing power back to the grid during peak hours. Now, Ford has expanded those efforts in a big way.
Ford has become the very first automaker to participate in a new program in conjunction with Southern California Edison (SCE) that offers that utility company’s customers – who also own a Ford EV – compensation for reducing their home energy use during times when the grid is most strained via a new program called California Power Response, which is part of the existing Emergency Load Reduction Program (ELRP). Customers that enroll in the program will earn $1 per kWh of energy reduced during peak times, though they also retain the ability to override that pause if they need to charge their vehicle at those times.
“Becoming the first U.S. automaker to participate in the ELRP program through Ford’s California Power Response program is another example of Ford maximizing every benefit possible for our electric vehicle customers,” said Bill Crider, senior director, global charging and energy services, Ford Motor Company. “Electric vehicles can deliver cost savings through incentives provided by leading utilities such as Southern California Edison, and current vehicle-to-home and near-future vehicle-to-grid services open even more benefits to customers, the electric grid and communities at large.”
This isn’t the first time Ford and SCE have teamed up in this regard, as the power company has also purchased a number of Ford F-150 Lightning pickups as it aims to achieve zero-emissions across its fleet in the coming years. Along with this pairing and the aforementioned power plant initiative in Maryland, Ford also recently teamed up with thermostat maker Resideo to explore the concept of how vehicle-to-home systems such as this can support home energy management by using bi-directional charging from a Ford EV, too.
Comments
Wait, so they want us to buy an EV, but now they’re going to pay us to not charge it?
They pay to not charge it during peak power consumption periods. So charge it overnight and get paid!
The devil is in the precise details. If they give you $1 per kilowatt-hour not used, how do they know you would have used it?
Or is there a special wallbox that monitors all times it is being used. So they can tell if you are cheating or not?
As an EV owner I charge after midnight and before 6am anyway, so this totally is a no-brainer for me…except for one little detail: I don’t live in LA and San Diego (as well as many others here in California) are not under SCE, so this doesn’t do jack-sh%^ for me.