Bi-Directional Charging coming when?

[WarehouseWilly]

I understand that Rivian is working on development of bi-directional charging and the associated home system to allow the vehicles to act as an energy source for the entire home. Anyone have an idea on when this may be introduced? This would be another great justification on value being able to avoid purchasing whole-home generator backup systems...some of which run between $10K-$14K.

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[Cosmacelf]

Based on Rivian comments, current production models won't get this. Maybe it'll be a running change at some future date, but don't assume current models will get it.

Also, even the king of bi-directional charging, the F150 Lightning, isn't a whole home solution. Whole home generators are typically 20 kW units and can power a typical suburban home. The Lighting can only output 9.6 kW, and while that is great, it won't power everything in a typical suburban home (HVAC, electric range, etc), but it will power a lot of it.

So think of bi-directional charging as an emergency backup generator that can handle the essentials like the fridge/freezers, some light circuits, some kitchen appliances, computers, etc.

So whether or not you'd want to rely on your vehicle as a backup generator depends a lot on how frequent and how long duration outages are.

 

[jjwolf120]

Based on Rivian comments,

What comments?

 

[Ralph]

Probably one of the many futures that will be on the "next gen" to help continue to generate sales. We will find out what kind of company we have bought into when we get a feel for what they do/do not add to older vehicles.

Some items will of course depend on tech not present in the current vehicles. But if this is one of them, I think people will have reason to feel mis-lead.

 

[doit82]

My ideal would just be for the truck to be able to feed back in to our powerwall at level 2 rates and let the powerwall do the heavy lifting. Not even sure if this is possible with the lightning.

 

[frostbit3]

Based on Rivian comments, current production models won't get this. Maybe it'll be a running change at some future date, but don't assume current models will get it.

Also, even the king of bi-directional charging, the F150 Lightning, isn't a whole home solution. Whole home generators are typically 20 kW units and can power a typical suburban home. The Lighting can only output 9.6 kW, and while that is great, it won't power everything in a typical suburban home (HVAC, electric range, etc), but it will power a lot of it.

So think of bi-directional charging as an emergency backup generator that can handle the essentials like the fridge/freezers, some light circuits, some kitchen appliances, computers, etc.

So whether or not you'd want to rely on your vehicle as a backup generator depends a lot on how frequent and how long duration outages are.

Can you reference what comments you’re referring to? RJ himself said these production vehicles are capable and they’re working on it. He wouldn’t have said that if the current production vehicles can’t support it.

 

[Mysta]

So true, Cosmacelf, and if I use my $84,000 Rivian to power my home, How am I going to drive it after I DRAIN my Rivian battery by "powering my home" for maybe a day, at the most..??? That's why I have a high quality Honda generator, and will use it to only run selected items such as my oil burner, frig, freezer, LED lights, wifi, laptop, and to charge my phone. I will use my gas and charcoal grills to cook, instead of my electric oven and range cook top.

Dunno if this is serious but with no conservation (using everything they’d normally use) the Rivian could power avg home for like 4 days. It’s battery is like 10 powerwalls

 

[Yellow Buddy]

My ideal would just be for the truck to be able to feed back in to our powerwall at level 2 rates and let the powerwall do the heavy lifting. Not even sure if this is possible with the lightning.

It is not. That’s a limitation on the powerwalls, not the Ford.

The system on the Lightning is nice but it’s not necessary. Having a Lightning, I looked into self installing the system. The reality is it simply was t worth the cost and extra complexity especially for vehicles which have Pro Power on board.

Heres how I went about it.

I have (4) SMA Sunny Islands for 20kW of continuous backup power. The system is hooked up to a relatively small 5kW battery bank.

When it’s sunny out, I have the ability to fully consume my 45kW of solar power and the system will blend and supply the additional 20kW from battery, grid or generator as needed or charge the battery bank if power is not needed.

If the grid is down, I have it set up to call for emergency generator power when the solar stops producing, the generator being a generator input panel to which the Lightning Pro Power supplies. There is also load shedding so it will shed the L2 chargers. The Lightning at that point adds an additional 98kWh of storage. It also passes that power as pass through giving me 27.2kW of backup capacity.

The major problem with this is that it requires manual initiation on the Ford. When the sun is down I also have to reduce my usage as I can only transfer 7.2kW via Pro Power so I can still drain my small pack if I run at high load continuously. I can grab a larger pack to resolve this but it hasn’t been needed as it’s typically enough to get into nighttime/sleeping usage anyway.

It’s a very flexible way to backup the house. Easily expandable if I need more storage, or move to new battery technologies, and I’m not tied to the Lightning. I’m only limited by what the vehicle can provide. I can swap out the Lightning with the Rivian but I would be limited by the 1500W power. If they decide to make it V2H module, I just treat that input as generator, there’s no need to rip it all out and do a ton of wiring.

 

[Cosmacelf]

It is not. That’s a limitation on the powerwalls, not the Ford.

The system on the Lightning is nice but it’s not necessary. Having a Lightning, I looked into self installing the system. The reality is it simply was t worth the cost and extra complexity especially for vehicles which have Pro Power on board.

Heres how I went about it.

I have (4) SMA Sunny Islands for 20kW of continuous backup power. The system is hooked up to a relatively small 5kW battery bank.

When it’s sunny out, I have the ability to fully consume my 45kW of solar power and the system will blend and supply the additional 20kW from battery, grid or generator as needed or charge the battery bank if power is not needed.

If the grid is down, I have it set up to call for emergency generator power when the solar stops producing, the generator being a generator input panel to which the Lightning Pro Power supplies. There is also load shedding so it will shed the L2 chargers. The Lightning at that point adds an additional 98kWh of storage. It also passes that power as pass through giving me 27.2kW of backup capacity.

The major problem with this is that it requires manual initiation on the Ford. When the sun is down I also have to reduce my usage as I can only transfer 7.2kW via Pro Power so I can still drain my small pack if I run at high load continuously. I can grab a larger pack to resolve this but it hasn’t been needed as it’s typically enough to get into nighttime/sleeping usage anyway.

It’s a very flexible way to backup the house. Easily expandable if I need more storage, or move to new battery technologies, and I’m not tied to the Lightning. I’m only limited by what the vehicle can provide. I can swap out the Lightning with the Rivian but I would be limited by the 1500W power. If they decide to make it V2H module, I just treat that input as generator, there’s no need to rip it all out and do a ton of wiring.

This all sounds great, but most people would not like the complexity of the arrangement. There are a lot of things that could go wrong, and diagnosing such a custom set up won't be easy.

In general, I shy away from complex interconnections of different systems purely due to the nightmare scenario (which is guaranteed to happen at some point) of one piece breaking and then having to diagnose the complex set up.

 

[Yellow Buddy]

This all sounds great, but most people would not like the complexity of the arrangement. There are a lot of things that could go wrong, and diagnosing such a custom set up won't be easy.

In general, I shy away from complex interconnections of different systems purely due to the nightmare scenario (which is guaranteed to happen at some point) of one piece breaking and then having to diagnose the complex set up.

Certianly a more complex setup, but these are fully supported functions and inputs of the SMA. It’s not really hacked together. A SMA authorized dealer/installer fully supports the system.

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