America’s Homes Are Already Transforming Into Mini Power Plants
Homes equipped with solar panels are starting to sell their surplus electricity to local utilities. Plus, EVs with bidirectional capability can keep the lights on through blackouts and power outages.
A home can be many things—a refuge, an investment, a money pit. So why not a power plant? In 2023 more US homes equipped with solar panels and batteries will start generating surplus electricity they can sell to their local utility. Those renewable energy systems will also keep the lights on and the Wi-Fi humming during blackouts triggered by the more frequent and intense storms, heat waves and wildfires caused by climate change. Heat pumps and other high-efficiency electric appliances, meanwhile, will slash homeowners’ energy bills and carbon footprints.
In a middle-class exurb outside Los Angeles, for instance, every one of 219 new single-family homes being built produces and banks solar electricity. Together they also form two microgrids that can operate independently of California’s stressed power grid. KB Home’s Durango and Oak Shade neighborhoods—in Menifee, California—also share a 2.3-megawatt-hour “community battery” that supplies additional juice to homes during outages.