By Abhirup Roy and Kalea Hall
SAN FRANCISCO, June 9 (Reuters) – General Motors is releasing a software update that allows some U.S. vehicles. electric vehicle owners to return energy to the electrical grid, another example of automotive companies seeking business opportunities in the energy sector.
The upgrade gives owners of GM’s vehicle-to-home energy system, which allows the electric vehicle to power the home during a blackout, the expanded ability to feed electricity into the electrical grid. However, it’s not yet clear whether doing so will be popular with drivers, who may also want to keep their cars charged.
• Owners of vehicle-to-home systems would be able to sell power to the utility at times of high demand, and GM would receive a portion of those payments. A GM spokesperson said it has thousands of vehicle-to-home users, but declined to provide a specific number.
• Very few public services offer such capability today, and the practice is essentially still in a pilot phase. GM is in talks with about 10 utilities, GM Energy Chief Revenue Officer Aseem Kapur told Reuters at an event in San Francisco.
• GM will need cooperation from utility companies to make vehicle access to the grid work. Commercial launch of “the technology will likely occur in the coming months, starting with California and Texas,” Kapur said. In Michigan, GM is partnering with utility DTE Energy on a vehicle-to-grid pilot with 30 GM employees.
• Utilities have approached the idea of vehicle-to-grid with caution due to the investment required, the uncertainty of the technology, and the number of users.
• Automakers, including Ford Motor, GM’s crosstown rival, have been following Tesla’s lead in trying to build energy businesses.
(Reporting by Abhirup Roy in San Francisco and Kalea Hall in Detroit; Editing by Jamie Freed)