California’s simultaneous transitions to zero emission transportation and decarbonized electricity systems will create opportunities to use growing deployments of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) for electric services. Systems that enable the use of energy stored in PEV batteries to power loads inside residential, commercial, or public buildings—referred to as vehicle-to-building (V2B) technologies—can provide resilience and reliability benefits that help mitigate the impacts of power outages driven by extreme heat events, wildfires, and public safety power shutoffs. PEVs contain large batteries that could potentially provide the same backup power services as behind the meter stationary storage at a lower cost than purchasing a dedicated storage system and without the emissions associated with diesel backup generators.

This solicitation seeks to accelerate development of technologies and easy-to-implement products that allow individual or fleets of PEVs to power residential, commercial, or public buildings including but not limited to schools, community centers, or government facilities during electricity outages or intentional islanding events. Projects must fall within one of the following project groups, with Group 3 targeting demonstrations at public facilities located in disadvantaged communities (DACs) and/or low-income communities (LICs):

·Group 1: Rule 21 Compliant or Exempt V2B Technologies

·Group 2 Rule 21 Non-Compliant V2B Technologies and Enablers

·Group 3: Rule 21 Compliant or Exempt V2B Technologies Demonstrated at Public Buildings in DACs and/or LICs.

These Groups reflect ongoing regulatory activity at the California Public Utilities Commission regarding interconnection requirements for distributed energy resources under Rule 21. A recent decision clarified and approved interconnection pathways for stationary, off-vehicle bidirectional chargers and instructed the state’s investor-owned utilities (IOUs) to develop safety requirements for limited pilot testing of mobile, on-vehicle bidirectional chargers that do not meet Rule 21 requirements. Groups 1 and 3 support technology demonstration and deployment projects that have higher levels of technology readiness and regulatory acceptance, whereas Group 2 supports applied research and development of earlier stage technologies for which interconnection requirements are not established.