Unlocking the Future: How Your Electric Car Could Power Your Home

Read time: 6 minutes

Hi all!

Welcome to issue #5 of Future Powered, where we showcase innovative products and services to make your home smarter and more energy efficient. We cover everything from smart appliances and devices to solar panels, heating, EV chargers and more.

Let’s dive in.

The problem

Electric vehicles (EVs) are more than just fancy cars with zero emissions. They're essentially giant batteries on wheels, ready to power up our lives. But most of the time, they're simply parked, limiting their potential.

We have photovoltaic systems powering our homes, home batteries, and more. So why not use our cars to power our homes too?

Here's the deal: Most EVs aren't designed to send energy back into the system, which means you can't easily power your home with your vehicle. Only a handful of cars, such as the Nissan Leaf, Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV, and Ford F-150 Lightning, currently support vehicle-to-home capabilities.

Another challenge is the lack of bidirectional chargers. Traditional chargers are unidirectional, only supplying power to the car. To power your home from your EV, you need a charger that can flow energy both ways. And that, my friend, is not easy! It needs to be able to convert power from AC (alternating current) to DC, as opposed to regular chargers that charge using AC. There are still few bidirectional chargers, so they come at a premium compared with regular chargers.

Meet Emporia V2X Bi-Directional Charger

Brief overview

Emporia V2X Bi-Directional Charger is one of the pioneers in bidirectional EV chargers designed for residential use. It can deliver up to 11.5 kW of charging or discharging power and is compatible with CCS type 1 connectors.

Emporia unique features

As a specialist in smart home energy management, Emporia has seamlessly integrated this charger into its ecosystem of products. Here’s what makes it special:

If you combine this charger with their smart home energy management system, you can automate and control your charging through your phone. Take it a step further and automate your charger to activate during periods of excess solar generation. This way, you can store the surplus energy in your car and use it to power your home when electricity rates are higher.

Lastly, it features an ‘off-grid island support’. By adding a compatible grid isolation device, you can tap into off-grid mode and reduce your reliance on the grid.

Who are the competitors?

While the market for bidirectional EV chargers is still heating up, a few contenders are worth mentioning:

• Wallbox Quasar and Quasar 2: Wallbox is one of the market leaders in EV chargers, and the Quasar is the only commercially available competitor, costing a small fortune of arounf $5000.

• Fermata Energy FE-15: Currently the most powerful bidirectional charger in the US, with a 15 kW charge and discharge rate, with the added option of letting you acquire the charger with no upfront cost.

• Autel MaxiCharger DC V2X: This charger is compatible with CCS1 or CHAdeMO connectors and can integrate with external energy management systems.

Only the Wallbox Quasar is currently available, all the other competitors are expected to launch either this year or 2024. While these competitors bring their own tricks to the table, none has an integrated home energy management system like Emporia has.

This is still a young market, and as new carmakers launch EVs with support for bidirectional charging we can expect new chargers popping up.

Price and availability

Emporia V2X bi-directional charger is listed at $1500 and is expected to launch in 2024.

That’s all for today.

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Until next time!

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