PG&E, BMW Group expand into third phase of electric vehicle optimization, grid reliability pilot

Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and the BMW Group have expanded their ChargeForward partnership into phase three, continuing the effort to power electric vehicles with renewable energy and using any excess to support grid reliability.

This latest phase has already begun enrollment, although the program itself will not launch until mid-April. It will run through March 2023. As part of the program, incentives are being offered to participating BMW EV drivers who are also PG&E residential customers. This will now include drivers in northern and central California, expanding to encompass approximately 3,000 drivers.

The goal is to see if encouraging EV drivers to charge at different times might help meet the needs of the electric grid and make use of excess renewable energy during the day. BMW drivers participating in the project will be signaled to charge at times that best support the grid.

This form of smart charging aims to make EVs a flexible sort of grid resource, one that could ultimately bring savings to drivers and those operating and maintaining the grid.

“The more than 320,000 electric vehicles plugging into PG&E’s electric grid offer a unique resource that contributes to building our clean energy future in California,” Quinn Nakayama, director of Integrated Grid Planning and Innovation at PG&E, said. “As EV adoption continues to grow, the potential for these clean vehicles as a flexible grid resource becomes more significant. Our ongoing collaboration with BMW has allowed us to explore and demonstrate future possibilities of scaling the smart charging capabilities of this growing resource to support the electric grid.”

ChargeForward first launched in 2015. Going forward, PG&E and BMW hopes to take their partnership into lab-based explorations of vehicle-to-grid functionalities. Included in this will be tests of EV batteries as backup generators and in conjunction with other grid services.