Assessment of vehicle-to-load in support of home appliances

With the rising population of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs), interest is increasing in discharging the energy stored in the traction battery to support vehicle-to-grid (V2G) services. While V2G has been and continues to be extensively studied, the potential of vehicle-to-load (V2L) using a bidirectional charger embedded in the vehicle has been largely unnoticed as a relatively simple and low-cost PEV attribute to (1) support critical loads in a building or residence during a grid outage without requiring additional equipment, wiring, or upgrades, and (2) provide up to 3.6 kW (110 V) and ~ 7.0 kW (240 V) of power in the absence of access to the grid such as a remote camp site. In this paper, V2L performance is assessed in terms of power quality, runtime, and efficiency for various loads. The results show that V2L can support a variety of home appliances with diverse load profiles with roundtrip efficiencies ranging from 63 % to 72 %. While V2L can support loads with varying power factors and power levels with excellent quality, efficiency decreases as current is lowered. With grid outages becoming more frequent and V2L-equipped vehicles more common, this research offers insight for leveraging the PEV V2L attribute including an empirical equation, developed with data informed by Design of Experiments, to estimate appliance runtime and guide how best to employ V2L. Overall, the study illuminates the path for developers of V2L technology and enhances the understanding of V2L for customers, ensuring further advancements into the bidirectional era, one of which is to increase the efficiency of V2L. • V2L supports diverse loads with excellent power quality. • Statistical models are able to accurately estimate voltage drop and power loss. • A proposed prediction equation estimates critical load duration during outages. • V2L system efficiency, ranging from 72 to 63 %, decreases with decreasing current.