California has first vehicle-to-home power plant in the US and it uses Ford F-150 Lightning EVs

It’s not just a truck anymore – the Ford all-electric F-150 Lightning has become part of the power grid.

A new pilot program in California, run by Sunrun with Baltimore Gas & Electric, has turned a handful of these pickups into bidirectional power stations.

Instead of just charging up in the driveway, the trucks now push electricity back into the grid when demand is peaking.

For the first time in America, a pickup is helping keep the lights on.

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The Ford F-150 Lightning that powers the grid

Sunrun – the country’s biggest solar and home battery provider – teamed up with BGE and Ford to flip the switch on the nation’s first residential vehicle-to-grid power plant. 

It’s small for now, with just three customers, but the tech is a big deal.

Each participating Lightning uses Ford’s Charge Station Pro and the Home Integration System, co-developed with Sunrun. 

Together, they let the truck’s 131-kWh battery feed electricity both ways.

Into the home and back to the grid.

The trucks were dispatched between 5 and 9pm on weekdays this summer, when energy use spikes with air conditioners running. 

And it wasn’t charity work. 

Customers got paid for the power they shared – up to $1,000 for the season.

“This demonstrates the critical role that vehicle batteries can play in powering the nation’s grid,” said Sunrun CEO Mary Powell. 

Ford’s Bill Crider went further, calling it a ‘game-changer’ to show customers their EV can actually earn them money just sitting in the driveway.

BGE exec Divesh Gupta added that the program makes the system more reliable, more efficient, and can even bring down electricity costs for everyone connected.

EVs as America’s next power plants

This is more than a pilot – it’s the first proof that cars can double as distributed power plants. 

With the right software and policies, EVs could one day stabilize entire regions during heat waves and storms.

That’s already happening in Maryland, where local resident Morgan Grove said he bought his F-150 Lightning partly to back up his home during outages. 

Now he’s earning cash by selling excess energy straight back to the grid.

Ford and Sunrun are already selling their bidirectional home power kit to regular customers. 

For now it’s just the Lightning, but the precedent is set: parked EVs could soon be just as valuable as power plants.

The F-150 Lightning started life as America’s best-selling truck gone electric. 

Now it’s rewriting the rulebook again, proving that sometimes the most powerful station in town is parked right in your garage.

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