30 Apr PG&E Showcases All-Electric Model Home, New Tech Aimed at Lowering Energy Costs

Representatives of the technology companies involved in PG&E’s PowerHouse cut the ribbon on the all-electric model home at a PG&E facility in San Ramon on April 17.

Editor’s note: This story was produced for the Future Energy Media Fellowship by American Community Media in partnership with PG&E.

Story and photos by Joe Porrello

Installing an electric vehicle charger and electrifying your home — whether owned or rented — is becoming substantially less expensive and simpler than ever, according to Pacific Gas and Electric Company.

To show how, the utility company unveiled its new “PowerHouse” on April 17 at the company’s Applied Technology Services facility in San Ramon.

The all-electric model home and technology testing and demonstration lab were showcased by members of PG&E and clean energy companies Tesla, Itron, SPAN and Pila Energy.

The event highlighted multiple new technologies that — either independently or in combination with each other — are meant to make it easier and cheaper for homeowners and renters to power their homes and vehicles with clean energy.

“For too long, renters and those with low income have been left out of the clean energy transition,” said Chris Moris, PG&E grid research and innovation development chief grid architect.

One focus of the showcase was simplifying the process to upgrade homes for electric appliances and vehicle charging.

Arch Rao, CEO of SPAN, said the company’s electric smart panels are designed to make electrification faster and more affordable.

“SPAN’s reason to exist, from the very beginning, has been to adopt electrification at scale and enable improved utilization of the existing electrical grid” he said.

The company’s new Span Edge product is an at-the-meter device that can be co-deployed with existing advanced metering structures on homes. It enables households to add new electric appliances or electric vehicle charging without costly electric panel or service upgrades.

PG&E plans to deploy the devices coupled with its new PanelBoost program, which pairs them with next-generation meters. The company said in a Feb. 5 press release that the program is “designed to reduce upgrade costs for customers adopting electric vehicles, heat pumps, induction cooking, and other high efficiency electric technologies.”

PG&E also highlighted its ChargeBoost program, which upgrades single-family homeowners from Level 1 to Level 2 charging — cutting charging time from 12+ hours to 3-4 hours. PG&E will install a new advanced meter for free, enabling consumers to enjoy faster charging without upgrading their electrical panel.

Customers would still need to already have or purchase a Level 2 charger, which can range from $400-700 with installation by an electrician averaging $200-800.

Representatives of Tesla and PG&E spoke about an alternating current, vehicle-to-grid powerplant — which allows customers to use their electric vehicle to send electricity back to the grid and get paid for it and power their home during an outage.

The system hardware is available for purchase and installation for about $4,000 altogether, while direct current-based systems cost anywhere from $10,000-20,000. Those participating in PG&E’s Vehicle-to-Everything pilot program are offered a rebate of up to $4,500 for the new charging hardware and installation.

“So basically, you can get one of these things for free in your home and then on top of that, you can start earning revenue in our virtual powerplant programs such as (the Emergency Load Reduction Program),” said Eli Darby, part of the PG&E Clean Energy Transportation Team.

The technology uses a preexisting vehicle inverter to transition power currents and send it back to the grid, as opposed to using an inverter that’s mounted to the wall.

Founder and CEO of Pila Energy Cole Ashman said the company’s Mesh Home Battery smart device could be set up in minutes and plugged into standard outlets to provide backup power and appliance energy insights. The battery is meant to be a room-by-room power solution that can be easily moved instead of one large installation cost for a power source that’s cumbersome to relocate — all while avoiding the need for permits.

“I couldn’t be more excited to tell you about what the team has been working on in stealth over the last two years,” said Ashman.

Now available for pre-order at $1,299 and reservation for $99, the Mesh Home Battery automatically takes over to keep essentials running during power outages and sends an alert to your mobile device about the outage along with an estimated time until power returns.

Also available to charge via solar power, the battery charges devices during cheaper, off-peak electricity times (typically before 4 p.m. and after 9 p.m.) and stores the energy to use during times when prices surge — saving users money on their electric bill by up to 90% when it comes to things like doing laundry.

Don Reeves, senior vice president of outcomes at Itron — a technology company that offers products and services for energy and water resource management — talked about the company’s next-generation smart meters. All of the demonstrated technology at the event is connected back to the grid by said meter, creating a technology ecosystem of sorts.

“Think of your next-generation smart meters as really being a grid sensor and a full-blown computing platform for making sense of all the information that’s available, and helping that translate into value for the consumer and insights for the utility,” said Reeves.

During the ribbon-cutting, the model home switched from grid power to electricity supplied by an electric vehicle.

And it’s not the first time this particular PG&E facility broke technological barriers, according to Jason Pretzlaf, manager of grid and electrification innovation at PG&E.

“We’ve been testing EVs in this facility since 1989, if you can believe that,” he said. “The first electric vehicle station that was installed in California was done by people in this group… the all-electric PowerHouse is a continuation of that journey.”

In the PowerHouse, visitors can see what it looks like to have a home with high-efficiency smart electric appliances and battery storage with touchscreen controls — showing all the details of your residence’s energy consumption and availability.

Preztlaf says the model home gives PG&E and its partners insight into customer experience instead of having to visualize it and “allows us to share with our PG&E engineers, policy makers, media and our customers what it looks like.”

In the future, the site will host tours and technology showcases; serve as a space for partners, contractors and stakeholders to test and validate technologies by scaling them into customer programs; and function as a learning space with community engagement focused on the future of electric living.

“We’re very excited about being able to bring other people here,” said Pretzlaf.