Emergency Household AC Power Powered By DIY Electric Car

[mechman600]

Last week the power went out for 2-1/2 hours. As my family sat in the dark I thought, man...I have a whole pile of batteries in the Electric Booger sitting in the driveway that could be powering my TV and keeping my beer cold.

I started to searching for weird inverters like this one: Inverter Tie Grid 1000w Dc 48v 60v 72v (45-90v) Input To Ac 190-260v/90-130v Output - Buy Inverter Tie Grid,48v 60v 72v Solar Grid Tie Inverter,72v Input Solar Inverter Product on Alibaba.com
OR
BRF 1000W MCU Modified Sine Wave Inverter with intelligence DC12/24/48/60/72V TO AC220/110V-in Inverters & Converters from Electrical Equipment & Supplies on Aliexpress.com

Seems like a good solution for backup power. Has anybody tried this before? Are there better solutions than the one in the link?

[CFECO]

Be "SURE" to turn off your main breaker to the Grid, in your breaker box! If you feed 120v AC back into the grid, the men working to get the power back on can be killed. I made a "Double Male", (Highly Illegal) extension cord to connect a generator to my home system in an emergency, it even looked scary..."Now which end do I plug in first..?"

[mechman600]

Originally Posted by CFECO

Be "SURE" to turn off your main breaker to the Grid, in your breaker box! If you feed 120v AC back into the grid, the men working to get the power back on can be killed. I made a "Double Male", (Highly Illegal) extension cord to connect a generator to my home system in an emergency, it even looked scary..."Now which end do I plug in first..?"

Sorry...I was considering the power source, not how to safely hook it up.

Doing the double male plug thing is very dangerous, even if you shut off your main breaker, because you are still connected to the grid through the neutral. You must install a transfer switch if you want to power your entire house with your own power source because it fully isolates your house from the grid.

[Cobb]

Grid tie inverters need a signal to echo in order to work. You would need to also use a regular inverter connected to the same cord that can handle the max output of both units or a small generator and the gti.

I did this once and posted about it online. Someone told me I was lucky the inverter did not burn up as I need to make sure the loads are heavier than the inverter rating so the gti handles part of the load.

[EcoReality]

Originally Posted by mechman600

Doing the double male plug thing is very dangerous, even if you shut off your main breaker, because you are still connected to the grid through the neutral. You must install a transfer switch if you want to power your entire house with your own power source because it fully isolates your house from the grid.

But the neutral is grounded!

Having installed transfer switches, I can assure you, they do not break the neutral connection.

[Astro]

Originally Posted by EcoReality

But the neutral is grounded!

Having installed transfer switches, I can assure you, they do not break the neutral connection.

Also if you are going to get a transfer switch installed it may not be bad idea to have a single non-essential circuit excluded from the transfer so that you can see when the power comes back on. No need to run your batteries down more than is necessary.

[EcoReality]

Originally Posted by Astro

Also if you are going to get a transfer switch installed it may not be bad idea to have a single non-essential circuit excluded from the transfer so that you can see when the power comes back on. No need to run your batteries down more than is necessary.

The transfer switches I've seen cannot work this way.

I've often thought about just putting a little neon bulb on the grid side of the transfer switch to indicated its uppedness.

But for now, looking at the neighbours' houses suffices. If you have a so-called "smart meter," I think it can tell you when the grid is up, as well.

[Astro]

Originally Posted by EcoReality

The transfer switches I've seen cannot work this way.

I've often thought about just putting a little neon bulb on the grid side of the transfer switch to indicated its uppedness.

But for now, looking at the neighbours' houses suffices. If you have a so-called "smart meter," I think it can tell you when the grid is up, as well.

That's a pity. I was hoping to have my transfer switch set-up with an excluded circuit.
Never mind, the power outages are so rare i don't think i will lose sleep over it.

I think i will hold off on getting a transfer switch installed, at least until the power outages become more frequent. Several times a year instead of the current several times a decade. Until then I will just keep using an extension lead from the UPS in the garage to the lounge room. Then into a power board for running the TV, some lamps and most importantly the ADSL modem and computer. Just so i can keep getting my ecomodder fix.

[CFECO]

I have been thinking lately about making the solar system I have at "The Ranch", portable, so if needed, (power outage at home), I could go put it in the truck and hook it up to the house Main panel. It is a 24 volt system using (4) L-16 6 volt batteries and a Trace 4024 inverter, 6 Uni-solar 75 watt panels which charge the batteries and (2) more that provide 12 volts to the old 12 volt RV I used to have up there. I could add the two panels to make a total of (8). This system is about 20 years old, except for the batteries, which were replaced a few years ago. There is also a propane Kohler 5000 watt RV generator which charges the batteries in the cold winter nights and runs the 220 volt well pump. The generator room-pump house is in need of R&R (Remove and Replace) so I was going to build a new building with a tracking system for the PV panels, but after some thoughts on the Grid attack in Cailfornia a while back, I got thinking in a different direction. I have the system, but it is not portable at this time, Tucson has some vulnerable Energy supply systems which could be damaged easily. One main electric supply line and one fuel supply line, our local main power plant runs on NG, Oil, with a Coal backup ( which I don't know if Obama's EPA even lets us use anymore), so a disruption in the NG line and the Large Electric line would mean lights out. I will be exploring this further.

[oil pan 4]

To disconnect from the power grid I pull the power meter.

If the power grid doesn't come back on with in a day or 2 then what?

For portable backup power I use my LiFePO4 starting batteries that have inverters attached to them.
For more backup power I fire up the 7kw generator, which has a optima battery and 1000w pure sine wave inverter. No point in running a 7kw gen when you only need a little power.