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It’s already looking to be the start of an active hurricane season. While the government insists that climate change is a hoax, the reality is that hurricane seasons are getting worse, with more powerful storms.
One thing you might not know is that your EV might be a lifesaver in one of these storms. Let’s take a few moments to talk about why here at the start of the season.
An electric vehicle is one giant battery. Yes, there’s a motor, and electronics, and safety features, and all that jazz. It’s a car, after all. But at its source is a giant, energy-storing battery. In many cases, that battery is massive in size, with well over 50 kWh of usable storage. In the case of a Hummer EV, or one of the big GM pickup trucks, it’s 225 kWh of usable storage.
In the event of a power outage, that EV is the ultimate generator to keep things going.
The average American household, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, uses just under 11 kWh a day to fully power its home. A Ford F-150 Lightning, with a 130 kWh battery, can provide over 11 days of complete power to a non-rationing house.
In fact, Ford has a partnership with Sunrun to offer a setup that uses the truck as a backup generator automatically. GM also offers a solution, and more are on the way. As long as your car is plugged into the charger at home, it can power the house with no interaction from you.
If you ration your usage, which you’re likely to do in a disaster, you can get even more usage out of your EV.
According to ElectricityPlans.com, 1 kWh can power a dishwasher for one hour straight. You can get approximately 50 hours of LED television watching. You can cook for 30 minutes in an electric oven. You can run a refrigerator for 3 hours. Heck, you can even run a PlayStation 4 for nearly 7 hours.
A 24 cubic foot frost-free Energy Star refrigerator would use 54 kWh per month. You could power that fridge with your truck, with no outside power, for over two months. Even an air conditioner uses 3 kWh per hour of usage, which gets you several days of non-stop use.
If you ration, you can easily get a week or more of use out of using your EV as a backup generator.
For EVs that don’t have that functionality, many come with V2L capability. With an appropriate adapter, you can pull out over 3 kW of electricity from a Hyundai Motor Group E-GMP car. On the new Leaf, you can get 1.5 kW out of the charging port.
This is enough power to run your fridge, keep your food fresh, and keep the TV or internet going so you can keep up with what’s happening.
Fun fact: Most internet connections still work when the power is out; it’s just that, since you don’t have power, your router doesn’t work. If you plug your router into a battery backup, you can often use the internet when the power is out.
Now, you might be thinking a gasoline generator is better in this situation. There are a few things you need to keep in mind, however. First, if the power is out, the pumps at the gas station aren’t going to work. So while you might be able to hoard gasoline before the storm, once you run out, you’re going to have to travel to find more. Also, a generator must be kept away from the house, because carbon monoxide poisoning can kill you quickly. When an EV is powering your home, it can do so from inside your garage.
Also, and less importantly, in an emergency, the EV is much quieter in its operation than a gasoline generator.
If your EV does get low on electricity and there’s still no power, you can drive to where you can recharge the EV (just like you’d refill a gas canister). A prolonged, widespread outage that occurs over a period of several weeks or more would create an issue, but that issue would still exist regardless of what generator you have powering your house.
If you have an EV, don’t go out and buy a generator ahead of these upcoming storms until you check if your car is capable of V2L. An adapter is cheaper than a generator, and your EV can often output more power than a generator.
A dedicated home generator setup for your EV, if supported, can be a bit pricey and take some time, but even something like the Lightning can still power appliances in your home through its V2L capabilities. Just the home integrated solution is also an option.
As EVs become more common, the technology exists to start setting up microgrids and helping the power company support its service by selling it electricity during peak times. It’s clever tech that certainly has a future.
Plus, with some of these solutions, they’ll integrate directly into a home-based solar or wind installation, helping provide a complete energy solution for you and your family.
But regardless, part of your disaster planning might include the vehicle in your garage already, and if it’s an EV, it can help you in ways you might not have considered.