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GM Energy Bets on Sodium Batteries for Energy Storage

GM sees EVs and battery storage as the future of the electric grid.

One of the louder arguments against the adoption of electric vehicles was that EVs would bring down the grid.

The reality is far different. Instead, GM and utility companies see EVs as a necessary tool to keep electricity flowing. AI data centers use an incredible amount of electricity, and GM sees EVs, along with its upcoming sodium-ion batteries, as necessary additions to the grid to keep the lights on even when everyone is summarizing their search results.

Car to Grid

At an event in San Francisco, GM Energy announced that its bidirectional charging system now supports vehicle-to-grid (V2G) in addition to vehicle-to-home and load (V2H). The energy division of the automaker also announced that it was teaming up with multiple utility companies to make these features a reality. One of those partners is California's PG&E. The utilities CEO, Patti Poppe, took the stage with GM Energy executives to tell the assembled press, "I'm here to say, to set the record straight, our grid desperately needs EVs, particularly bi-directional EVs that we can optimize and contribute to the grid."

Plugging in a vehicle and having it send energy to a home or back to the grid should be a seamless experience, according to GM Energy vice president Wade Sheffer. "Our mission is to deliver a customer experience like none other to that customer."

PG&E (and other utilities) and GM have been working on a pilot program for V2G for a few years now, and during that time, Sheffer and the team have been able to streamline the experience for customers. The idea being, this should be an extremely easy feature to implement once the necessary hardware is installed.

According to the automaker, there are over 250,000 GM EVs currently on the road that support bidirectional charging. PG&E and GM are targeting 52,000 vehicles within the utility's operating area to be hooked up to V2G systems and supporting the grid by the year 2030.

PG&E and GM stated that those 52,000 vehicles would be able to power every home in the city of San Francisco for half a day.

"This is really where EVs start to matter, even for those that don't own them," Sheffer said.

The largest hurdle to this sort of adoption could be the cost. The starting price of a GM Energy bidirectional charging system is $6,299. That's before installation costs. Fortunately, there are incentive programs to bring down that price. But it's important to remember that the system only works with GM products.

Currently, there is no bidirectional system on the market that works with all EVs that support the feature.

Sodium Energy

In addition to EVs, GM Energy is working on a new sodium-ion chemistry and battery for energy storage systems (ESS) to help balance the grid. The battery solution is specific to the needs of grid-based ESS.

GM is betting on sodium-ion cells for energy storage. (GM)

"Our strategy is simple: develop the right battery for the right application," Kurt Kelty, GM's vice president of battery and sustainability, said during a presentation.

The battery has a wider temperature operating tolerance than the batteries currently found in automobiles. Sodium-ion will work between -40 °C (-40 F) and 60 °C (140 °F) while also supporting up to 20,000 cycles. While they don't have the quick charge and discharge capabilities or the robustness of EV-based batteries, they don't need to work in the extreme environments that a vehicle interacts with every day.

GM is partnering with Peak Energy to develop the sodium pyrophosphate (NFPP) batteries and expects them to head into production in 2028. Peak Energy does have sodium-ion batteries currently attached to the grid, but GM points out that we should view those batteries as generation one. GM Energy and Peak Energy is developing generation two of the chemistry for deployment.

While GM wouldn't share energy density or per-pack or module pricing, it did note that its future ESS would have 20% lower operating cost than current systems on the market. This is in part thanks to the lack of active cooling needed by other systems. They did point out that there is a heating system for those regions where dipping below -40 degrees is a possibility.

GM Energy's continued move into balancing the grid via EV and ESS helps the company leverage its experience in battery technology while offering potential EV owners an additional reason to adopt electrification.

Topics:
Batteries Electrification Energy Energy Efficiency Energy Harvesting Energy Storage Power Management

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