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Keep your home powered during an outage? Try a big battery that lasts 3 days
- cf100clunk 3y agoSunverge AC-Coupled Solar Integration System Spec Sheet [pdf]: https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/2472485/Website%20Content/Sunverge_AC%20SIS_NA_12092016.pdf https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/2472485/Website%20Content/Sun...
- h2odragon 3y agoIn the 90s, I had a couple of army surplus missile silo batteries. 1500lb each. and an 800lb forklift battery. With those charged up and bunch of ebay UPS systems wired to them, we had ~3kw for computers for 2 or three days.
- cf100clunk 3y agoGenerac-type natural gas electrical generating units wired into the power panel are increasingly popular in new housing developments of a certain financial range, and retrofitting of homes with those is happening too. Presumably the gas companies are expected to have functional pumps even in electrical outages. If a solar charged battery system like the Sunverge is used there is no dependence on external sources during an outage.
- EA-3167 3y agoWe got a Generac on our gas line installed and it's had about 5 uses so far... it's incredible. A battery system sounds pretty interesting too, but if you have the gas line already and are planning for normal outages (not prepper stuff) then for convenience, power and automation I doubt you can beat a good generator.
- quickthrowman 3y agoYou’re probably fine without a battery as long as you don’t live in Texas. During their big winter power outage a few years back, all of the natural gas distribution was offline when the power went out.
- longitudinal93 3y agoThe problem with the Generac solution as that there's still a 7-10 second gap between the grid failure and the generator coming online.
- cf100clunk 3y agoGood point, and it means the budget for a Generac-type system should include UPSes as needed to cover anything time sensitive.
- quickthrowman 3y agoWhat household load would be critical enough that it needs to be backed up by a generator and UPS? I can’t think of anything.
- cf100clunk 3y agoBy household load I guess you aren't talking about the usual UPSes for computers & network gear, home entertainment systems, etc. where continual availability might be wanted.
- h2odragon 3y agoWe were out in the woods with no budget; donated surplus, redneck engineering, and a willingness to learn by burning was what got us through. zap and hafta go peel a snake out of the bus bars in the battery shed
- derbOac 3y agoHow safe would something like this be? It has a lot of appeal to me but I'm already getting nervous about battery fires as it is.
- cf100clunk 3y agoI posted a link to the spec sheet in these comments and the certifications are shown. If your concern is the Li-Ion battery itself, that's a fair question.
- elzbardico 3y agoI would definitely build a separate shed out of concrete blocks to keep it if allowed.
- cf100clunk 3y agoConcrete blocks are not tolerant of certain heat ranges (they can crumble) so maybe some extra hard portland cement would do the trick? A cistern filled by rainfall or garden hose could be built of the same material just above the battery compartment with a quick drain to totally douse the battery if needed.
- earleybird 3y agoWater can be problematic in lithium fires.
- cf100clunk 3y agoMaybe the upper chamber would need to be a hopper full of suitable material to try to contain a Li-Ion fire.
- elzbardico 3y agoThe concrete shed will be ok during normal operation. It would be there just to protect the battery from the elements and to make sure it wouldn't burn down my house should it enter thermal runaway. It would be for the same reason I have my generator and its fuel in a dedicated shed today.