Overview:
PG&E’s Powerhouse: a fully electrified home testing clean energy technologies like EV charging, smart panels, heat pumps, and battery storage will make electrification simpler, cheaper, and easier for customers
On April 17, American Community Media partnered with PG&E to give journalists a live demo of something unusual: a home designed entirely around the future of energy.
The showcase was PG&E’s Powerhouse—a first-of-its-kind, fully electrified home where new clean energy technologies aren’t just displayed, but actively tested and refined. Inside, everything works together: bidirectional electric vehicle charging, smart electrical panels and meters, heat pumps, battery storage, and even induction cooking. The goal is straightforward—to make electrification easier, more affordable, and less confusing for everyday customers.
One of the most compelling ideas on display was the two-way relationship between the home, the grid, and electric vehicles. Power can flow from the grid to the home and car, but also back from the vehicle to the home—an approach often described as vehicle-to-grid and grid-to-vehicle.
The event included a guided tour led by PG&E and its partners, with companies like SPAN and Tesla helping explain how these technologies come together in a real-world setting.
PG&E’s Jason Pretzlaf opened the tour by explaining that the company’s work in clean energy isn’t new. “We’ve been testing electric vehicles here since 1989—if you can believe that,” he said.
The Powerhouse will take that work further by unlocking the full potential of electric vehicles for everyday customers, he added. The demonstration focused on a simple but powerful idea – connectivity: by linking devices, the system uses the potential of new technology to power both the house and a car.
Many of the technologies tested at PG&E’s PowerHouse are supported by its electric research and development program, funded through the Electric Program Investment Charge (EPIC). This public-purpose program helps bring new energy solutions to life by supporting real-world demonstrations.
EPIC focuses on technologies that improve safety and reliability, lower costs, support environmental sustainability, and expand access to clean energy for all California customers.
Chris Moris, who leads grid research, innovation, and development at PG&E, said the goal is to integrate up to 3 million electric vehicles into the system. Doing so could help customers avoid $10,000 to $20,000 in grid upgrade costs. “As heat pumps and other electric devices come onto the system, we want to be ready to support customers,” he said, making the transition “quickly, affordably, and in a way that’s delightful for them.”
Arch Rao, CEO of SPAN, demonstrated the company’s ‘smart panel’, designed to make home electrification easier and more affordable. The panel allows customers to add new electric appliances without the high cost of upgrading their service or replacing their panel.
“You can buy a SPAN panel through your contractor today—they will replace your existing panel,” Rao said, adding that SPAN is “excited to partner with PG&E,” which is now offering the device at no cost.
Rao also showcased the SPAN Edge device, which works alongside a home’s existing smart meter (the Advanced Metering Infrastructure [AMI] device). “We’re solving for an install that can happen in about 15 to 30 minutes,” Rao explained, giving customers the benefits of electrification “without the need for replacing their existing panel or… upgrading the grid upstream.”
Inside the home, representatives from Itron demonstrated what they call a “grid intelligence solution”—a smart digital system designed to keep customers informed and connected. The technology can send real-time alerts about power outages, no matter where a customer is, and even monitor food safety using sensors.
“Our vision is to deliver a grid that is highly adaptive and resilient,” one representative said, that can meet customer needs most affordably while providing real-time insights. The aim is to lower operating costs and create flexibility for future innovations, “whether that’s more solar, more batteries, more electrification, and whatever comes next.”
Friday Apaliski, Managing Director of Communications at the Building Decarbonization Coalition, said she was impressed by the behind-the-meter work at Powerhouse to help both homeowners and renters make full use of electric appliances. “PG&E and SPAN have done a great job in making sure that panel service and potential upgrades will not stand in the way of getting, say, a heat pump.”
Overall, PG&E’s Powerhouse is designed to remove common barriers to electrification. The technologies on display make it easier for customers to add electric appliances and EV charging without expensive upgrades, manage energy use more intelligently, and improve backup power, often using their own vehicles. The idea is to let people adopt electrification step by step, rather than all at once.
The demo also showed how this works in real time. A Tesla Cybertruck powered the home and even supported the grid, and SPAN panels monitored how much capacity was available and automatically adjusted the EV charger—throttling it up or down to match the home’s limits.
Eli from PG&E’s Clean Energy Transportation team and Victor from Tesla explained how Tesla is approaching vehicle-to-grid technology. Their system uses an AC pathway instead of DC, which means drivers can use their EVs to support the grid—and potentially get paid for it.
During the demo, they showed how this works with the Tesla Cybertruck, which is currently the only model with this “powershare” capability. They noted that Tesla plans to expand the feature across its fleet over time.
When asked about safety during natural disasters such as wildfires, the team said the technology is designed with resilience in mind.
They explained that battery systems—whether stationary or plug-in—go through extensive and increasingly strict testing. “For any of these battery systems… they go through a rigorous set of testing procedures,” they told India Currents, noting that these tests are specifically meant to address risks like fires, floods, extreme weather, lightning strikes, and even physical impact through drop and abuse tests.
This article was written as part of the ACoM-PG&E Future Energy Fellowship project.