Enphase is developing electric vehicle charging technology as part of its home energy management
system. We want to give your EV all new superpowers including the ability to power
your home during an outage, the ability to support the power grid when needed, and the ability to
charge your car using the sun's energy. Now let's take a closer look at how Enphase is developing
what's known as bidirectional EV charging technology to power your car and your home.
Hi, my name is Mohammad Alkuran, and I'm the Senior Director of Systems Engineering at Enphase.
Today, I'm going to demonstrate our bidirectional EV charging technology. First, what exactly is
bidirectional EV charging? Traditionally, EVs get their energy from the grid, which means you may be
powering a green car with fossil fuels. Now, with Enphase's bidirectional charger, an EV can charge
from clean solar or the grid and it can send clean energy back to the home or the grid when needed.
The value of bidirectional charging increases even more when it's integrated with an Enphase Energy
System. An Enphase Energy System includes our pioneering microinverters that convert sunshine
into energy you can use to power your home, the IQ gateway and IQ system controller to help connect
and coordinate all the system components, and, soon, a bidirectional EV charger that'll provide
a link between your car and your home. The system can also include an IQ battery to store the energy
you make for use whenever you need it. Finally, the Enphase App allows you to manage everything
from the palm of your hand. You can see when the Enphase Energy system is on or off grid. If it
shows an on-grid status, this indicates that the Enphase system detects the power grid and can move
energy back and forth. If it shows an off-grid status, the Enphase Energy System is providing
energy to the home independent of the power grid. You can also check the state of charge of the
EV battery. And you can see the flow of energy between solar panels, EV battery, the grid, and
the home. Now let's talk about the bidirectional EV charger itself. This charger connects to your
EV and leverages the power of IQ microinverters to both charge and discharge the car battery when
directed. It's comprised of two key components, our IQ microinverters that convert the DC power
from the car to AC power from your home and communications technology that connects to the
car, and the Enphase Energy System to enable charging and discharging of the EV. Now let's
talk about the three primary use cases of this technology, those superpowers you heard about. The
first use case is known as vehicle-to-home charging. This is where the bidirectional
EV charger can be used to power the home. Let's see what happens during a power outage. In this
instance, the EV is already charging using the bidirectional charger. We simulate the outage
by disconnecting the home from the power grid by turning off the main breaker. The Enphase Energy
System instantaneously detects the outage, isolates the home from the grid for safety,
and then instructs the bidirectional charger to begin discharging the EV battery to provide
uninterrupted power to the home. All of this happens automatically. When the grid is restored,
the Enphase system automatically takes the home back to the on-grid mode.
Next, we're going to see how you will be able to use the Enphase bidirectional charger to
share the energy in your car's battery with your community and get paid for it. This use case is
referred to as vehicle-to-grid charging. Today, homeowners in certain states can already share the
energy saved in their home battery with their community during times of high energy demand.
This is known as grid services sometimes referred to as a virtual power plant.
With the Enphase bidirectional charger, cars will be able to participate in grid services programs.
This means when the utility sends a signal to homeowners requesting power,
the Enphase Energy System will automatically send energy from the EV battery to the grid.
Homeowners will be compensated by the utility companies for this service.
It's one more way to get value out of your Enphase Energy System.
In the third use case, we will demonstrate the green charging capabilities of an EV using the
Enphase bidirectional charger. You can see what's happening in the house here
on the Enphase App screen. The Enphase Energy System can be configured so that home solar is
used to power the home with green energy and any remaining solar power is used to charge the car.
It can also be configured for savings mode, which means that during periods of high utility rates,
the home can be powered by the EV battery using the bidirectional EV charger,
adding a layer of control so you can better manage your utility bill. We just explored
Enphase's vision for bidirectional EV charging. We're working with EV manufacturers to bring this
revolutionary technology to market. Bidirectional EV charging will be a gamechanger for homeowners
who want maximum control over their energy usage. Contact us and learn more about this technology.