Wildfire Electric Backup

[oregon_phil]

Update to my situation. I really need to start thinking with a wider perspective. Last summer we had a once in a (my) lifetime wildfire event where we were on the verge of losing power for a week. This winter, we had a twice in my lifetime sleet/freezing rain event with multiple down trees, poles, wires, etc. and power out for a week. In either case, a hybrid inverter with batteries would not done me much good because we hardly had any sun during each event.

[J.P.M.]

Update to my situation. I really need to start thinking with a wider perspective. Last summer we had a once in a (my) lifetime wildfire event where we were on the verge of losing power for a week. This winter, we had a twice in my lifetime sleet/freezing rain event with multiple down trees, poles, wires, etc. and power out for a week. In either case, a hybrid inverter with batteries would not done me much good because we hardly had any sun during each event.

A wider perspective: Move to someplace like Palm Springs, get a generator for emergencies and a grid tie PV system for all your everyday power needs.

No wildfires, No cold. No clouds. No rain. No kidding.

[SunEagle]

A wider perspective: Move to someplace like Palm Springs, get a generator for emergencies and a grid tie PV system for all your everyday power needs.

No wildfires, No cold. No clouds. No rain. No kidding.

I always say if you don't want snow then move to Florida. But we also get hurricanes and days without sunshine so I guess it is a toss up as where to live if you want solar as a main power source.

[J.P.M.]

I always say if you don't want snow then move to Florida. But we also get hurricanes and days without sunshine so I guess it is a toss up as where to live if you want solar as a main power source.

A short story: Before I moved top San Diego, I spent time in several places that I thought might be candidates for a new home out of the clouds/snow/wind that enveloped Western NYS 6 months of the year. During that search, my friends and neighbors in Buffalo commented on the latest candidate in my quest. For Tampa-St.Pete's it was "those hurricanes and the humidity will kill you". For Houston it was "The heat and hurricanes and floods will kill you. For San Diego it was "those earthquakes will kill you." And so it went.

So, I pay my money and take my choice. After I get to San Diego and my new friends and acquaintances usually ask where I came from. At first I said Upstate New York. The next comment from my new friends was usually in the form of a question: "If you're from New York, why don't you talk with that funny accent ? So, I started saying I was from Buffalo with the almost immediate and universal comment: "No wonder you're here, those winters will kill you."

Now, I like San Diego and I intend to stay, but if I could magically swap a bunch of random people living in San Diego for an equal number of random people from Buffalo, San Diego would be a better place.

Point is, there ain't no perfect place. Life is what you make it.

[oregon_phil]

Being without power for about a week really makes me admire what you off-grid types go through. You do have to think about redundancy, but how many redundant paths is sufficient? I'm still going with my NG generator selection as my backup power path.

BTW, I do have an SMA 7.7 inverter with the "secure power" outlet socket (up to 2000watts) with TIGO TS4-RO's. You need 18VDC to get the TIGO -RO's to function, but then you need sufficient sunlight power the secure power outlet. When all of your solar panels have ice on them in pacific northwest wintertime, there isn't even enough DC power from the panels to boot up the secure power function. These newer inverters without displays are very frustrating to deal with when your power is out (home network down). I would have had to hardwire my ethernet cable to the inverter to find out that there was insufficient sunlight for the secure power function. I figured that out anyway by looking at the weather.

[chrisski]

I looked at batteries, but they are very expensive and would not recharge during wildfire event (no sunlight for days on the solar panels). My goal was to get the least expensive solution to run my AC and HVAC air filtering with wildfire debris events. Thank to everybody for the information provided.

I’m wondering in your search if you found an easily installable battery powered system that would be recharged by a generator. That is something I considered for my RV after the install. For me, would have been good to have power during the large lulls between my high amperage draws which need a generator but the lulls like a few LED lights could be powered for days on batteries.

[solardreamer]

Being without power for about a week really makes me admire what you off-grid types go through. You do have to think about redundancy, but how many redundant paths is sufficient? I'm still going with my NG generator selection as my backup power path.

BTW, I do have an SMA 7.7 inverter with the "secure power" outlet socket (up to 2000watts) with TIGO TS4-RO's. You need 18VDC to get the TIGO -RO's to function, but then you need sufficient sunlight power the secure power outlet. When all of your solar panels have ice on them in pacific northwest wintertime, there isn't even enough DC power from the panels to boot up the secure power function. These newer inverters without displays are very frustrating to deal with when your power is out (home network down). I would have had to hardwire my ethernet cable to the inverter to find out that there was insufficient sunlight for the secure power function. I figured that out anyway by looking at the weather.

I think you are making a good choice. Generators are still the most practical backup power source at this time. And even if you eventually get home battery you will still need generator anyway to charge the battery when there is cloud or smoke. I picked a tri-fuel generator for max fuel flexibility.

[Mike90250]

I’m wondering in your search if you found an easily installable battery powered system that would be recharged by a generator. That is something I considered for my RV after the install. For me, would have been good to have power during the large lulls between my high amperage draws which need a generator but the lulls like a few LED lights could be powered for days on batteries.

Most hybrid inverters will charge batteries from the generator input, since that's how most off-grid sites get thru a week of bad weather. I only need to run the generator 60-90 minutes a day to "get enough charge" to get to the next day, which might have sun - regardless what the weatherman says

[oregon_phil]

I had considered a hybrid inverter & batteries and battery inverter & batteries and combinations with/without generator.

It bugged me to have 10kw worth of solar panels on my roof and not integrate them into my solution so I did the research. There are many decisions to make. When you try to salvage what you have to be part of the solution, it limits your solution set. i.e. I have an SMA inverter, so should I use an SMA battery inverter? High or low voltage batteries? They only make single phase model so do I get two of them or a transformer for split phase? How much would it cost to replace my SMA inverter with Hybrid?

Occam's Razor: I have NG, I need backup electric power, get a NG generator. Move on.

I forgot to add: The modern american refrigerator was the first appliance to fail my expectations in our power outage. Power hog, poorly insulated and couldn't keep food cold for a day, but it looks nice. Now I know why the fridge's internal circulating fan almost always runs.

[Ampster]

-
....... The modern american refrigerator was the first appliance to fail my expectations in our power outage. Power hog, poorly insulated and couldn't keep food cold for a day, but it looks nice. ........

I ran my modern GE refrigerator for 3 days using a 12 volt Lithium pack and an 800 Watt inverter. Yes, the fan ran much of the time, but it had very low surge on startup and once at temperature the internal inverter driven compressor used very little current. It did not cycle on and off like my old energy hog.

[J.P.M.]

I forgot to add: The modern american refrigerator was the first appliance to fail my expectations in our power outage. Power hog, poorly insulated and couldn't keep food cold for a day, but it looks nice. Now I know why the fridge's internal circulating fan almost always runs.

You got a crappy fridge, or at least crappy insulation. My power was out for ~ 36 hrs or so last summer from POCO fire scare. The fridge temp. increased from 38 F to ~ 47 F while the freezer temp. went from -9 F to +5 or so.

My fridge is 18 yrs. old. 25.8 ft^3 Kitchen Aide. Draws ~ 500 kWh/yr. According to Kill-a-Watt, the beast draws ~ 104 W when running and not on defrost cycle. But the ice maker crapped the bed ~ 13 yrs. ago so I use ice cube trays and so make a lot less ice.

[bcroe]

I ran my modern GE refrigerator for 3 days using a 12 volt Lithium pack and an 800 Watt inverter. Yes, the fan ran much of the time, but it had very low surge on startup and once at temperature the internal inverter driven compressor used very little current. It did not cycle on and off like my old energy hog.

Do you have a measurement of KWH use per day use? 2 decades ago I
bought the most energy efficient (Energy Star) fridge/freezer on the market,
checking in at 1 KWH per day. But it had no inverter driven compressor.
Bruce Roe

[Ampster]

This refrigerator was close to 2kWhr per day. Apparently the only advantage of that model was the low startup current.

[oregon_phil]

After 9 months of waiting, the NG generator is finally installed. Generator lead times are extraordinarily long. I'm also reading that solar panel and inverter lead times are long too.

We had another year of really bad wildfires, but this year the wind blew east instead of west. Sorry Bruce.

Some nuggets gathered during the install:

My main meter panel is a Siemens mc0816b1200efn. It is a 200 amp panel (M2 disconnect) with a separate 50 amp service (M1 disconnect). It is a solar ready meter panel that isn't called solar ready. The original solar installer did not use the M1 disconnect and chose to use the M2 disconnect instead (didn't take advantage of the solar ready meter panel).

The electrician wired the M1 disconnect to the SMA inverter and the M2 disconnect to the ATS which then goes to my house. The inverter is on a separate electrical circuit and doesn't care when the ATS switches from the grid to the generator. Wired correctly with enough forethought, a solar ready meter panel can easily be wired to an ATS to protect the inverter from generator and vise versa.

Since the inverter is now on a separate circuit, in a separate thread, others have told me to make sure I think about surge protection. I had the electrician add a Midnight solar surge protector to the inverter circuit; the M2 disconnect house circuit already had surge protection.

[jasonvr]

Adding onto this thread as I now find myself in a similar situation having just gone thru a 29 hour Public Safety Power Shutoff on Thanksgiving. Currently have a SolarEdge inverter with 19 panels - 6.27kW total - no batteries. Was hoping there was a way to add a generator (NG) to the setup while allowing me to use the solar while available (it was bright and sunny during the day while the power was off), but it seems as though that is impossible without batteries which I still don't think make economic sense at this point (payback vs lifespan doesn't make sense).

Due to my panel being really small (100A), my solar was installed with a line side tap (Generation Meter Adapter - https://www.sce.com/sites/default/fi...%2BAdapter.pdf). So, it sounds like I'm more or less in a good state to put in a generator. I'd have an ATS between my meter/supply and my panel and the generator would hook into that. When the power goes out, the ATS switches me to the generator and my solar is useless at that point. This assumes I size the generator large enough to supply the whole house. If I only want to supply part of the house it gets more complicated with special protected circuits, etc.

Does this sounds about right?