California has a good problem. As it scrambles to deploy more solar panels and wind turbines, it is reducing its greenhouse gas emissions and improving air quality while hitting the challenge of intermittency: When the sun doesn’t shine and wind doesn’t blow, you’re not generating electricity. So the state is building battery farms to store that energy — its storage capacity skyrocketed 2,100 percent between 2019 and 2025 — so it can keep the lights on when it’s dark or calm.
But the Golden State is also sitting on a vast, untapped storage resource — or, more accurately, the capacity parked in driveways and garages. Many EV models are equipped with vehicle-to-grid, or V2G, technology that allows them to send power back into the system during times of high demand. A new report notes that if just one-tenth of EV owners enrolled in V2G programs in California by 2036, they would provide one-third of the state’s targeted amount of long-duration energy storage. “It won’t take a huge amount of participation to make a meaningful dent in what would otherwise be very exp... Read more
