California to grant $52 million for vehicle-to-grid home energy stations

Smart home energy company Dcbel was awarded grant money for the deployment of EV charge-controlling devices that can respond to dynamic grid price signals.

The California Energy Commission (CEC) announced it will award smart home energy company Dcbel the largest tranche of funding under its Responsive, Easy Charging Products With Dynamic Signals (REDWDS) program, granting a total of $52 million. The program supports electric vehicle-to-grid and vehicle-to-X charging and discharging technologies. 

The competitive grant funds will support the deployment of home energy stations throughout California. Dcbel will collaborate with UC Davis, Berkeley Laboratory, Southern California Edison, Sonoma Clean Power, and Grid Alternatives, to execute the project. 

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The REDWDS program focuses on funding projects that enable customers to readily respond to dynamic signals on the electric grid, minimizing charging and discharging costs for electric vehicles at home. 

Dcbel’s solution consists of a home energy station, a UL certified bidirectional DC electric vehicle charger that doubles as a solar and stationary battery inverter. The home energy system is controlled by the company’s edge computing platform, called Orchestrate, which plans whether to use, store, or sell electricity based on grid price signals and homeowner preferences. The company’s solution also includes Dcbel Chorus, a real-time technical aggregation Internet of Things (IoT) software platform.