EVs "are either going to be a very bad thing during a crisis or a very good thing," said David Slutzky, CEO of Fermata Energy, a company that supplies bidirectional charging equipment that can transfer energy stored in an EV battery back to the power grid.

"If the government and the auto industry continue to pursue electrification of vehicles and we have many, many more EVs on the roads of Texas and everywhere else, and we have an event like happened in Texas, then the vehicles could be a disaster for the grid," said Slutzky. "That's the worst thing that you can do: Add lots of load and then have these events that happen."

But finding ways to reduce load at peak energy-usage times and transfer energy back to the grid could be a saving grace.

"If instead of just adding load, you add a combination of some load and lots of storage from the parked cars, now you're adding stability, more cost-effectively," he said.

(Full article by Alexa St. John originally posted on Automotive News March 1, 2021. NOTE: Article is behind paywall for subscribers.)