Two-Way EV Charger Technology Being Developed by Pepco and Toyota
Image courtesy of Noya Fields under Attribution-Sharealike 2.0 Generic License, resized to 700 x 391 pixels.
Pepco and Toyota have partnered to develop electric vehicle or EV charger technology that can replenish car batteries while at the same time sending power back to the grid. This so-called “vehicle-to-grid” research is taking place at Pepco’s Watershed Sustainability Center in Rockville, MD. Let’s take a closer look at this initiative.
Details of the EV Charger Technology
Simplistically, the technology under development features a bidirectional charger that allows the energy stored in an EV battery to be funneled to the grid when needed. The overall goal of this type of technology would be to streamline the transition to renewable energy as well as to reduce power costs for customers.
Although this may seem relatively straightforward, the rub here is that only specific types of EVs can perform this vehicle-to-grid energy transfer. This is why a partnership between an electric utility and an EV manufacturer is necessary. Toyota, for its part, only has 2 EV models currently, but plans to produce 30 models by 2030. Its partnership with Pepco is the company’s third such partnership (the 2 others are with Oncor in Texas and San Diego Gas & Electric in California).
Another key element of the partnership is the geographic location – Maryland is one of the fastest-growing EV markets in the U.S. In fact, state officials want at least 300k registered EVs on the road by next year. And in April 2024, Maryland became the first state to approve vehicle-to-grid legislation (Act HB 1256, which requires utilities to develop interconnection processes for bidirectional chargers).
Overall, I applaud these efforts, especially from an emergency preparedness perspective. I’ve read a lot of articles recently about how EVs could drain the grid, but with this new EV charger technology, it seems to me that this risk would be largely mitigated. Obviously, only time will tell if this technology helps move the needle, but in my opinion, every little bit helps so a needle mover isn’t the end all be all for this one.
