In early March, sturdy winds introduced down bushes and energy traces within the Nashville space, leaving hundreds of properties with out energy. However about 20 miles exterior the town an electrical pickup truck fed power to John and Rachelle Reigard’s house, holding their lights on.

“You’ll be able to take a look at all the homes round us, and so they’re all off,” stated Mr. Reigard, who purchased the pickup, a Ford F-150 Lightning, greater than a yr in the past. “Lots of people ask the query: ‘How do you will have energy?’”

The Reigards are a part of a small group of pioneers utilizing the batteries of their electrical automobiles as a supply of backup energy for his or her properties. Vitality and auto specialists count on many extra folks to do the identical within the coming years as auto and power firms make it simpler for folks and companies to faucet the power in electrical vehicles for greater than driving.

Electrical grids are more and more straining and buckling throughout excessive climate linked to local weather change, together with in prolonged warmth waves, intense storms and devastating floods. Many individuals have purchased turbines or house photo voltaic and battery programs, typically at nice expense.

To some folks, electrical automobiles are a greater possibility as a result of they will serve a number of capabilities. One other large benefit: The battery in an F-150 Lightning or the electrical Chevrolet Silverado pickup, which is anticipated to go on sale this yr, can retailer much more power than house batteries which might be generally put in with rooftop photo voltaic panels. Pair an electrical truck with a house photo voltaic system, the considering goes, and a household may hold the lights on for days and even weeks.

Using electrical automobiles as a supply of energy has intrigued electrical utility executives, together with Pedro Pizarro, who heads the board of the Edison Electrical Institute, the business’s major commerce group, and is the chief government of Edison Worldwide, which offers energy to hundreds of thousands of properties and companies in Southern California.

Mr. Pizarro’s firm and different utilities are testing whether or not it’s sensible and secure to ship energy from electrical automobiles to the grid.

By absorbing energy when it’s considerable and releasing it when it’s scarce, electrical automobiles, he stated, may function “an even bigger rubber band to soak up the shocks and handle them each day and week to week.”

Larger use of electrical automobiles on this means also needs to enable utilities and householders to scale back planet-warming emissions by relying extra on renewable sources of power like photo voltaic and wind that present energy intermittently.

For now, few electrical automobiles can present backup energy. However executives at Tesla, the dominant electrical automobile firm, and different automakers have stated they’re engaged on updates that can allow many extra vehicles to take action.

When the facility goes out within the Reigards’ neighborhood in Mount Juliet, Tenn., their truck provides sufficient electrical energy to maintain the lights on, run 4 fridges and function a fan in a natural-gas-fueled heating system. The truck doesn’t hold their air-conditioning going, however different necessities activate simply minutes after an outage begins.

When the household misplaced energy round Christmas, Ms. Reigard’s dad and mom, who had been visiting, had been alarmed as a result of it was freezing exterior. “They began considering, ‘My gosh, what’s occurring?’” Mr. Reigard stated. His response: “Nothing’s occurring. We’re going to be tremendous.”

The couple have been so happy by their truck that they purchased 10 extra for his or her enterprise, Grade A Development. They estimate that the funding is saving them $300 a month per car as a result of driving on electrical energy prices much less per mile than burning gasoline.

Whereas the vehicles cut back working prices, outfitting the Reigards’ house with {the electrical} gear that lets it obtain energy from the F-150 required hiring specialists and spending hundreds of {dollars}. The couple used Qmerit, an organization that manages the event, set up and upkeep of electrical automobiles, storage and vehicle-to-home power programs.

A handful of parts relay info between the truck and the house’s electrical system, home equipment and lights. As soon as arrange with a house owner’s preferences, the system decides when the truck costs its batteries and when it sends electrical energy again to the home.

However such programs might be difficult, and a few early adopters have encountered issues.

Kevin Dyer, a software program high quality engineer who lives close to Los Angeles, has used electrical automobiles since 2009 and purchased an F-150 Lightning in September. He needed the truck to assist his household experience out the rolling blackouts which have turn into widespread in California in recent times.

“We completed the set up,” Mr. Dyer stated. “The truck truly powered my home. That was the high-five second. That’s when issues sort of went downhill. It simply principally works, then shuts off.”

Mr. Dyer, 59, stated he hoped a software program replace or one other modest repair would resolve the issue.

Vitality executives stated the business was working to enhance and simplify the expertise to attach electrical vehicles to properties, one thing they stated would occur inside a couple of years.

Oliver Phillips, chief working officer at Qmerit, stated that over time extra folks would have the ability to simply mix photo voltaic panels, house batteries and electrical automobiles. Put collectively, these gadgets will “bulletproof” folks in opposition to energy outages, he stated.

Battery-powered automobiles may ultimately play a good greater function by offering power to the grid when demand for electrical energy exceeds provide, stated Gus Puga, proprietor of Airstream Providers, {an electrical}, heating and cooling firm that labored with Qmerit to put in the system on the Reigards’ house.

Some power specialists have apprehensive that the expansion of electrical vehicles may pressure grids by drastically growing demand for power. Mr. Puga disagrees: “I imagine we’re going so as to add stability to the grid.”

Within the auto business, some specialists have warned that continuously utilizing vehicles to energy properties or the grid may degrade batteries quicker, lowering vary — the space that automobiles can journey on a full cost. However automakers have performed down these dangers.

Ford and Common Motors are eager on advertising and marketing the flexibility of their battery-powered fashions to individuals who have suffered energy outages or worry blackouts.

“It’s actually a game-changer,” stated Ryan O’Gorman, a enterprise improvement power companies supervisor at Ford. “The truck is a big energy supply. E.V.s are massive and might energy the home for a number of days.”

Mark Bole, head of power connectivity and battery options at G.M., stated the corporate deliberate to supply a package deal of gadgets and companies so clients may get probably the most out of their electrical car. “What we see as completely secret’s making it easy and reasonably priced for the client,” he stated.

However Mr. Pizarro, the utility government, cautioned that power and auto firms nonetheless wanted to refine the expertise permitting vehicles to ship energy to properties and the grid. He expects extra issues to be recognized as extra folks begin to use electrical automobiles for backup energy.

“It’s the early days,” Mr. Pizarro stated. “There might be surprises.”