The house and car will merge -- and change how we power our lives
Next generation of EV batteries will power homes and feed energy to the grid
When the power went out at Nate Grahams New Mexico home last year, his family huddled around a fireplace in the cold and dark. Even the gas furnace was out, with no electricity for the fan. After failing to coax enough heat from the wood-burning fireplace, Grahams wife and two children decamped for the comfort of a relatives house until electricity returned two days later.
The next time the power failed, Graham was prepared. He had a $150 inverter, a device that converts direct current from batteries into the alternating current needed to run appliances, hooked up to his new Chevy Bolt, an electric vehicle. The Bolts battery powered his refrigerator, lights and other crucial devices with ease. As the rest of his neighborhood outside Albuquerque languished in darkness, Grahams family life continued virtually unchanged. It was a complete game changer making power outages a nonissue, says Graham, 35, a manager at a software company. It lasted a day-and-a-half, but it could have gone much longer.
Today, Graham primarily powers his home appliances with rooftop solar panels and, when the power goes out, his Chevy Bolt. He has cut his monthly energy bill from about $220 to $8 per month. Im not a rich person, but it was relatively easy, says Graham You wind up in a magical position with no [natural] gas, no oil and no gasoline bill.
Graham is a preview of what some automakers are now promising anyone with an EV: An enormous home battery on wheels that can reverse the flow of electricity to power the entire home through the main electric panel.
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