Electrical outlets on the 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning. (Youngrae Kim/for the Chicago Tribune)
Ford began deliveries of its F-150 Lightning to the Chicago area last month, and the electric version of the truck features a new option with a lot more utility than all-weather floor mats.
For about $5,000, not including installation costs, you can add a bidirectional charging system that turns the EV pickup into a backup generator capable of “powering your home” for three days.
Sunrun, the nation’s largest residential solar power company, developed the groundbreaking charging system with Ford, tapping into the Lightning’s massive battery to keep the lights on during an electrical outage, a technology that could have widespread application for the growing EV industry.
California-based Sunrun is also looking to leverage its charging system to spur adoption of another technology: rooftop solar power.
“There’s a real connect between folks that drive EVs and want to charge their EVs with clean power,” said Sunrun spokesman Wyatt Semanek. “We’re hoping to get some synergies there.”
Electric vehicles and residential solar power are niche segments in the auto and energy industries, but both are gaining traction in Illinois, boosted by federal and state incentives to convert to renewable energy sources in the coming years. Combining the two could put Sunrun’s massive suburban Chicago warehouses at the center of the state’s expanding clean energy initiatives.
Illinois has become a hotbed for large-scale solar projects in recent years, with renewable energy developers staking out turf on the rural fringes of the Chicago area to build dozens of solar farms to feed the electric grids of Commonwealth Edison and other utilities.
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