The electricity stored in an electric vehicle (EV) was of great help to a homeowner in southern California, and not just for mobility. I recently heard from a member of our organization about his experience during the recent fires in the Los Angeles area.
Public Safety Power Shutoffs and Loss of Communication
In California, the utilities have to shut off the power to overhead power lines during periods of high winds due to the risk of power lines causing fires from contact with trees. This typically happens in wooded rural areas and these shut off events are referred to somewhat euphemistically as Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS) or Red Flag warnings.
Now that many people receive their phone service from their cable provider or have no land line at all, a loss of power can also mean a loss of communication. This is what happened to our member in the endangered area as he narrates it:
“Hello Jose,
I’d like to let you know the success I had with my existing EVs in powering subsystems in my house during a recent PSPS from SCE.
Due to the recent Red Flag warning, our power went out. We live in a rural area of Orange County which has no cell service. Therefore, we had neither cell, cable, nor wireless. I discovered that the cable (Spectrum) stayed up, and some neighbors used batteries to power their modem/routers. I plugged a 120 watt inverter into my EV, ran an extension cord to my modem/router, and had cell, wireless, PCs, and electronics charging for the three days. Having communication in a dark house when a fire could be bearing down on us at any time is very comforting.
I believe this should work in most EVs as long as you can keep the accessories energized (see manual). For Teslas, that requires that the car be in “camp mode.” Unfortunately, this means that the car air conditioning stays on. As long as the car temp is the same as the ambient temp, there is very little energy usage. Also, the newer Teslas use 15 volts for accessories; thus, typical 12 volt inverters won’t work. I found the following inverter on Amazon and it worked fine for the low wattage loads we needed:”
PSPS as an Added Risk
His experience illustrates several important things. First, even beyond the area impacted by a fire, the PSPS impacts more members of the community by depriving them of not only power but also of communication, which is even more critical when evacuation orders are being issued. If he had not been able to power his cable modem with his EV Battery he would have had to evacuate just in case or risk a fire coming on him without warning.
V2L as Emergency Power
Second it illustrates the value of an EV as a source of auxiliary power. A Tesla does not have true V2L as some more modern EVs have. That is, it does not directly produce AC and have an AC outlet. Thus, the need for the inverter. It does, however, have an old-fashioned cigarette lighter outlet, nowadays called an accessory outlet. In most cars this is connected to the 12V battery and would quickly drain it, but in Tesla Models S and Y the accessory battery automatically recharges from the main mobility battery. This provides 120W of power, which is sufficient to power a router and computer.
Selecting EV Features
As he mentioned to me, not only could the EV battery hold up his communications for many days but had the PSPS persisted he could have driven his EV to a public charging station for more energy. This illustrates another virtue of an EV: it can carry electricity from one place to another.
If the EV had been a model capable of V2H he would have been able to use it in grid forming mode and power his whole house with it during the PSPS. As newer EVs add V2L, V2H and V2G features it will become more important to understand these features in choosing an EV.
