An electric vehicle owner has used her car’s emergency power system to run her 11-year-old son’s life-saving dialysis machine and another has ridden to the rescue of his neighbours after devastating storms cut power in south-east Queensland.
When the power went down after storms and flash flooding on Christmas Day, many residents immediately felt the consequences: electric gates did not work, septic tanks began to fill, air conditioners could not run and fridges began to warm as a heatwave followed.
But some electric vehicle drivers whose cars are equipped with “vehicle to load” systems – a back-up power system that allows the car to act as an emergency generator or supply for devices such as lights, laptops, TVs and refrigerators – stepped in to help out and, in some cases, save lives.
One woman on the Gold Coast, Kristy Holmes, 42, used her BYD electric car to power her 11-year-old son’s dialysis machine after their power shut off on Christmas Day.
At first, Holmes and her husband used the car to plug in their fridges and those of their neighbours in the adjoining units but when the power did not come back on quickly, she started to wonder whether the BYD Atto 3 the couple bought in February could also handle the life-saving dialysis machine.
“We ran it off the car,” Holmes said. “We only needed to use it for the one night. We could have run it for at least four nights and then have to go charge the car somewhere.”
Her son Levi, who is about to go on a transplant list this month, would have faced life-threatening health consequences had he not been able to receive treatment, and would have needed to travel to Brisbane during the storm if he could not find an alternative.
Holmes said she had known she could “use my car for good things” since she made slow-cooked mulled wine for a movie night using the car’s electric system.
“It’s the most amazing car I’ve ever owned. Now it’s been able to save my son during a storm, I don’t think I’ll ever go back to a petrol car again.”
Another EV driver, chemistry teacher Matt McLaughlin, 52, used his vehicle to help those in need after he posted to the Bonogin community Facebook group offering emergency power.
“If anyone needs electricity briefly. To open gates, pump out biocycle etc. As long as it’s on a 3 pin 10A plug, I can help out,” he said.
“My much maligned EV has V2L which means you can run power to it. Give me a shout but I will require you to publicly acknowledge that EVs aren’t all bad.”
McLaughlin, a member of the Rural Fire Service, was unaffected by the power outage thanks to solar panels and a Tesla Powerwall home battery system at home. This allowed him to assist others, including a couple who had been locked in their home by an electric gate.
“Most gates now have a key with which you can manually unlock them, but theirs was really old. There was nowhere to put the key,” he said. “They were trying to get out their back gate into the national park.”
Other EV drivers with similar systems were out helping where they could, as were those with Tesla Power Walls who rigged up power to help run their neighbours’ fridges.
“I think everyone does just help out around here,” McLaughlin said. “In a semi-rural area, you’ve got to help out your neighbours.”
He said the crisis also taught a lesson to many about the advantages of zero-carbon technologies, included helping answer some “very anti-EV” sentiment from people who have sworn they’ll “never give up [their] dirty diesel”.
McLaughlin said even his wife was initially sceptical about his heavy investment in solar panels, home batteries and their two electric cars, but has since been convinced.
“We have been completely off-grid for six days, we’ve had air-con running and the pool pump running. I’ve been able to charge the car off the excess solar all day,” he said. “My wife thinks it’s fantastic.
“People can be sceptical until they realise, ‘Hang on, this is going to be better’. If the power goes out for half an hour in the middle of the night, we don’t notice. We’re oblivious to it.
“I wasn’t aware the power had even come back on when I woke up this morning.”
