Bi-directional charging

[axelheimer24]

you are VERY close to having emergency backup.....

Grid-tied PV won't help you in Grid outage unless you have a hybrid inverter and built in transfer switch and batteries. But, with your EV you have all the battery you need!

As long as you are willing and able to follow simple procedures to isolate your house from the grid before using your EV as an Emergency Generator; you do not NEED an automatic transfer switch. All you really need is a little (1500watt) pure-sine Inverter for $300 or less, which you can energize via Jumper cables to your 12v connection points.

Then you can run extension cords to direct loads, OR you can fabricate male-male plug adaptors and 'backfeed' the nearest regular 15 amp outlet AFTER isolating from the grid and turning OFF your Solar circuit. If you backfeed one outlet on each 'leg' of your service panel, you effectively have 'whole house' backup.... but you MUST turn off main breaker, all 240 load breakers, Solar backfeed breaker, and all non-critical 120v loads to keep the maximum load well below 1500 watts if you are extracting energy from your MME.

*** Manual isolation, and use of male-male adapters with any Emergency Generator is NOT fool proof, and presents shock hazard if procedure is not followed. ***

Love that smart people like you are pioneering, but that procedure is beyond my technical skillset or comfort level. I’m optimistic this will be packed in a more consumer friendly way in the next generation of EVs.

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[RickMachE]

It's funny reading your post. I started thinking about a generator for home backup. The quote I got was insane. My gas meter is on opposite sides of my electrical meter, and they were talking about yards of wire and pipe.

I sat back and said why don't I go clean energy and backup battery!? Duh.
I ended up getting a 10.27 kWh PV system, but the 3 power walls required to run my house during an outage just did not make financial sense. We don't have time of use utility rates here. Now that I have a 70 kWH battery parked in my driveway, my problem should be almost solved, with the help of a transfer switch. Maybe my '26 car will do it. Maybe a Cybertruck. Haha.

In 2021 when the Lightning was announced, I put in a reservation and started researching. I concluded that the Lightning wouldn't be a good backup power solution for many people for the following reasons:

1) Cost of implementation as compared to a whole house natural gas generator.

2) Has to charged and plugged in.

3) Requires 100amp circuit. Most houses require a bunch of work to support that.

As a result, we put a generator in in September after 15 years here. 6 outages in prior 12 months. Since we installed the generator, we have had around 6 outages.

Two outages occurred end of Feb into March. We were in Florida visiting relatives. Would have taken the Lightning had we owned it then. 46 hours for the first outage...

We paid about $10k for a 22kw generator (19.5kw nat gas). Everything can run. For the V2H solution, it is close to $9k.

Just lost power Sunday, out for 20 hours. Analyzed hourly not gas cost. Averaged around 75 cents an hour. Debated running extension cords for 2 refrigerators. And another for TV. And would lose AC. Left generator on...

A bunch of people have had implementation issues including WiFi issues. A bunch have had issues with the charger.

We retired 2 years ago. Want power when we decide to not be home. Generator was the answer.

 

[Gilles]

KIA partnered with Wallbox and is offering bidirectional on the EV9.
Why can't Ford offer the same for the MME? We have a generac backup in our house but are looking at downsizing to a townhouse condo. It would not be possible to put a generator outside but we could have backup with the Wallbox. We could use it to save on hydro at peak time and recharge the car at night (where I live, in Ontario, we have ultra low rates (2.5 cent/kwh) between 11pm and 7am.

 

[dtbaker61]

KIA partnered with Wallbox and is offering bidirectional on the EV9.
Why can't Ford offer the same for the MME? We have a generac backup in our house but are looking at downsizing to a townhouse condo. It would not be possible to put a generator outside but we could have backup with the Wallbox. We could use it to save on hydro at peak time and recharge the car at night (where I live, in Ontario, we have ultra low rates (2.5 cent/kwh) between 11pm and 7am.

having a bi-directional charger capable of acting as an inverter producing 'grid quality electricity' is only part of the challenge. Yes there has to be a partnership between vehicle and charger mfg to develop the sensor and communication between car and charger to ALLOW export of high voltage DC from the car battery to the charger.

the trickier part is..... how do you throttle the rate at which energy is sucked out of your car if you home is still connected to the grid? Do you have sensors on all your load circuits that talk to the charger and only pull that from your car? Or, do you pull some set amount of current, feed your house, and excess goes back to the grid?

If you can't throttle the inverter, the tricky part is to transfer OFF the grid when you are pulling from the car, and then stop extracting from the car when you switch back. The communication and switching has to happen in milliseconds if you don't want to detect a 'blink' and mess up any appliances.

there are potentially three separate mfg (transfer switch, charger, vehicle) that have to develop communication standards, and then they will argue about whose fault it is when something breaks. It will be 'a while' before the kinks are worked out and cost is reasonable.

 

[Gilles]

having a bi-directional charger capable of acting as an inverter producing 'grid quality electricity' is only part of the challenge. Yes there has to be a partnership between vehicle and charger mfg to develop the sensor and communication between car and charger to ALLOW export of high voltage DC from the car battery to the charger.

the trickier part is..... how do you throttle the rate at which energy is sucked out of your car if you home is still connected to the grid? Do you have sensors on all your load circuits that talk to the charger and only pull that from your car? Or, do you pull some set amount of current, feed your house, and excess goes back to the grid?

If you can't throttle the inverter, the tricky part is to transfer OFF the grid when you are pulling from the car, and then stop extracting from the car when you switch back. The communication and switching has to happen in milliseconds if you don't want to detect a 'blink' and mess up any appliances.

there are potentially three separate mfg (transfer switch, charger, vehicle) that have to develop communication standards, and then they will argue about whose fault it is when something breaks. It will be 'a while' before the kinks are worked out and cost is reasonable.

As stated in this link https://www.greencarreports.com/new...idirectional-charging-here-s-how-it-will-work they will offer the bidirectional charger and grid disconnect switch. This is very similar to the transfer switch on a standby generator. In our house, we have a 50 amps transfer switch. The important circuits are on that switch with the rest on the original panel. A 50 amps fuse connect the original panel to the transfer switch. The generator never has to synchronize with the grid since the transfer switch takes input from the grid or the generator. I suspect the same will be true with the Quasar offering.

 

[azerik]

KIA partnered with Wallbox and is offering bidirectional on the EV9.
Why can't Ford offer the same for the MME? We have a generac backup in our house but are looking at downsizing to a townhouse condo. It would not be possible to put a generator outside but we could have backup with the Wallbox. We could use it to save on hydro at peak time and recharge the car at night (where I live, in Ontario, we have ultra low rates (2.5 cent/kwh) between 11pm and 7am.

We have enough problems already just trying to charge this thing.
Not to mention 'Bugs' that have been outstanding for 7 months (L2 Charge derating) Would you want to rely on this Mustang build on a sand foundation?

 

[Gilles]

We have enough problems already just trying to charge this thing.
Not to mention 'Bugs' that have been outstanding for 7 months (L2 Charge derating) Would you want to rely on this Mustang build on a sand foundation?

I have a 2021 Mach-e and never had a problem charging on L2 chargers. I had some issues with L3 but was never unable to charge (sometimes I had to restart the session a few times).
I am not sure what you see as L2 derating. How do you know it's a Mach-e problem and not a charger problem?

 

[azerik]

https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/l2-charging-speed-recently-dropped-33.28779/
34 pages worth, plus several other threads about it we just let die.

I'm sorry to have informed you. Once seen, like the HVJB, it can't be unseen.

 

[Gilles]

https://www.macheforum.com/site/threads/l2-charging-speed-recently-dropped-33.28779/
34 pages worth, plus several other threads about it we just let die.

I'm sorry to have informed you. Once seen, like the HVJB, it can't be unseen.

Appears to be an actual problem. I only have a 30 amps circuit for my L2 charging, so it may not apply to me. I am not sure if it would apply to bidirectional DC charging.

 

[dtbaker61]

As stated in this link https://www.greencarreports.com/new...idirectional-charging-here-s-how-it-will-work they will offer the bidirectional charger and grid disconnect switch. This is very similar to the transfer switch on a standby generator. In our house, we have a 50 amps transfer switch. The important circuits are on that switch with the rest on the original panel. A 50 amps fuse connect the original panel to the transfer switch. The generator never has to synchronize with the grid since the transfer switch takes input from the grid or the generator. I suspect the same will be true with the Quasar offering.

yes, this article goes thru exactly what I said..... It's certainly possible, but will require a high-quality inverter-charger (probably around $4k), transfer switch and electrical work to take the house on/off the grid (probably around $5k), and cooperation developing comminication protocols with the vehicle mfg and some extra contactors and relays to enable high voltage DC to be exported. This will not be something we can retrofit into an existing EV just by getting a Quasar2.

My point is that there are solutions available TODAY that can enable any EV to power a home as a low power 'emergency backup generator' alternative to a regular gas/diesel/propane generator.... In our case, extracting power thru the 12v system and powering up a little pure-sine inverter is easy, but limited to about 1500watts continuous....

https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...120vac-power-from-lvb-connection-points.7317/

 

[ajmartineau]

Cells from a MachE have powered my house during a power outage.

It is disappointing that Ford is not keeping up or advancing bidirectional charging.

 

[i8iridium]

yes, this article goes thru exactly what I said..... It's certainly possible, but will require a high-quality inverter-charger (probably around $4k), transfer switch and electrical work to take the house on/off the grid (probably around $5k), and cooperation developing comminication protocols with the vehicle mfg and some extra contactors and relays to enable high voltage DC to be exported. This will not be something we can retrofit into an existing EV just by getting a Quasar2.

My point is that there are solutions available TODAY that can enable any EV to power a home as a low power 'emergency backup generator' alternative to a regular gas/diesel/propane generator.... In our case, extracting power thru the 12v system and powering up a little pure-sine inverter is easy, but limited to about 1500watts continuous....

OR...a medium quality Chinese power supply and a custom made cable to connected to the AC Compressor circuit. Keeps the EcoFlow Delta Pro topped off while running the house. Is it dangerous, yes. not any more dangerous than a large PV system. 377vDC in, 110v DC out. Fused and cabled appropriately, it's fine. I'll be moving to a solar inverter that can take 500vDC of PV input instead of the Chinese power supply in the very near future.

 

[dtbaker61]

OR...a medium quality Chinese power supply and a custom made cable to connected to the AC Compressor circuit. Keeps the EcoFlow Delta Pro topped off while running the house. Is it dangerous, yes. not any more dangerous than a large PV system. 377vDC in, 110v DC out. Fused and cabled appropriately, it's fine. I'll be moving to a solar inverter that can take 500vDC of PV input instead of the Chinese power supply in the very near future.

where did you get the connector to make your cable?

there are TONS of 'all-in-one' inverter/chargers with charge controllers that accept <500vDC as PV input.

how much current can the AC compressor circuit carry? i.e. how much power can be exported ?

 

[i8iridium]

where did you get the connector to make your cable?

there are TONS of 'all-in-one' inverter/chargers with charge controllers that accept <500vDC as PV input.

how much current can the AC compressor circuit carry? i.e. how much power can be exported ?

This is the exact connector and pins I ordered:
https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Aptiv-formerly-Delphi/13830171 - Connector
https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/Aptiv-formerly-Delphi/13753471-L - Male Pins
It's not even the right connector, because one of the keys is slightly off, so i had to shave it down with a blade. I'm still hunting for the exact one. Still does the job though.

The AC Compressor circuit is protected with a 50A fuse inside the HVBJB. We'll say at 375vDC 50 Amps would be about 18.7kW, which is WAY more than I'd try to export from there anyway. I have my cable protected with a 10A fuse. Ideally, that would blow before the fuse inside the HVBJB. Otherwise, it would turn into an expensive failure.

With the EcoFlow drawing 1600 watts (~15A@110vDC), it's drawing a measured 5.3A on the HV side with power supply conversion losses.

Yes, I actually have a GroWatt on order right now. That'll let me input the HV DC as pretend solar and export straight to AC.

 

[Gilles]

yes, this article goes thru exactly what I said..... It's certainly possible, but will require a high-quality inverter-charger (probably around $4k), transfer switch and electrical work to take the house on/off the grid (probably around $5k), and cooperation developing comminication protocols with the vehicle mfg and some extra contactors and relays to enable high voltage DC to be exported. This will not be something we can retrofit into an existing EV just by getting a Quasar2.

My point is that there are solutions available TODAY that can enable any EV to power a home as a low power 'emergency backup generator' alternative to a regular gas/diesel/propane generator.... In our case, extracting power thru the 12v system and powering up a little pure-sine inverter is easy, but limited to about 1500watts continuous....

https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...120vac-power-from-lvb-connection-points.7317/

You are correct that you can hack a 1500w system. That may run your furnace or just keep a few lights on. What I am looking for to is a 10Kw+ backup power that will not only run a furnace but also the stove, fridge, security system, lights...etc. and is fully supported by the car manufacturer. That is exactly what Quasar and Kia are doing. As for the price, I think it will fall quickly once approved for multiple cars. Alibaba sells a 50KW DC to AC inverter for $2,500. and a Generac automatic transfer switch is about $800 at Home Depot. In the Kia EV9 announcement, they said they would include the transfer switch for free to the initial customers.

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