MAEVE ALLSUP | Rivian and EnergyHub today announced a strategic partnership to embed utility-managed charging directly into Rivian vehicles across the country.
Under the partnership, Rivians will be available as controllable resources to more than 150 utilities on EnergyHub’s distributed energy resource management platform, giving system operators dispatchable flexibility during times of grid stress.
The move isn’t just about plugging the Rivian ecosystem into EnergyHub’s DERMS platform, but rather about unlocking near-term headroom on constrained local grids, said Jeff Huron, EnergyHub’s head of EV strategy, in an exclusive interview with Latitude Media. It’s reflective of a shift in how utilities understand the role EVs can play in a resilient grid, he added.
“The EV programs that we’ve seen in the past largely copy from traditional demand response programs [like] solving bulk system constraints, reducing peak load,” Huron explained. “We’ve found that that alone is not a great use case in a silo for EVs, because they’re different assets than thermostats and batteries.”
