Grid / Storm Resilience Home Battery?

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Folks in my neighborhood have these honking big $20k-$40k backup natural gas generators which kick in every time we have a power outage.  Something that happens several times a year, given we are in part of Tornado Alley (non-tornado storms big enough to knock down trees are common - and we get ice storms every couple of years).  In two decades we've had two 10-day power outages and 3-day losses, while not regular are also not uncommon.  Usually, however, power is only down for a matter of hours - which barely scratches the 'nuisance' category. 

Still - this has me thinking about backup power.  A quick search, however, quickly descends into rabbit holes of Off-Grid econuts and survivalists or expensive gas & solar solutions.  The obvious alternative is the cheap Honda gasoline generator. 

But is there a middle road anyone knows about? 

Something like a battery that just sips off the grid power and stands ready to keep the Fridge humming? 

... 

The main problem seems to be the combination question of 'what do you need to power' and 'how to retrofit a home not designed with this in mind'. 

Anyone already done a dive into this? 

[StrandedonEarth]

37 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Something like a battery that just sips off the grid power and stands ready to keep the Fridge humming? 

Well, there's the Tesla PowerWall and similar competitors (~$10k IIRC), as well as portable battery solutions from companies like Delta Ecoflow or Jackery (~$1k/kwh)...

I keep wishfully looking at the portable options for my RV, but that's money I don't have...

E: cuz I'm still paying for the RV...

Edited December 3, 2022 by StrandedonEarth
Ecoflow is the company, Delta is one of their models...

[DDE]

We have a 4 kWt gasoline generator to power the fridge, the gas boiler, or miscellaneous electronics (but not everything at once). It's semi-portable, and we've made no real accomodations for it - just take it outside and throw an extension cord through the window. Batteries, at least when we considered them half a decade back, were a lot more maintenance-heavy... and that's with the damn genny leaking gas and requiring quite a bit of a teardown after 7 or so years of mostly non-use.

[kerbiloid]

A water tank, a pump, and a pinwheel.

Pump the water up into the tank. When no power, let it flow down and rotate the dynamo pinwheel.

Thus you won't need lithium, but always have water.

[Pthigrivi]

On 12/3/2022 at 11:39 AM, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Folks in my neighborhood have these honking big $20k-$40k backup natural gas generators which kick in every time we have a power outage.  Something that happens several times a year, given we are in part of Tornado Alley (non-tornado storms big enough to knock down trees are common - and we get ice storms every couple of years).  In two decades we've had two 10-day power outages and 3-day losses, while not regular are also not uncommon.  Usually, however, power is only down for a matter of hours - which barely scratches the 'nuisance' category. 

Still - this has me thinking about backup power.  A quick search, however, quickly descends into rabbit holes of Off-Grid econuts and survivalists or expensive gas & solar solutions.  The obvious alternative is the cheap Honda gasoline generator. 

But is there a middle road anyone knows about? 

Something like a battery that just sips off the grid power and stands ready to keep the Fridge humming? 

... 

The main problem seems to be the combination question of 'what do you need to power' and 'how to retrofit a home not designed with this in mind'. 

Anyone already done a dive into this? 

Wwwelll this is one of those big deep dives because it depends a lot on what your needs and climate are.  What you really need to consider is how comfortable do you need to be in a worst case scenario. If its truly “keep the fridge running for 10 days” Id recommend a hybrid system, 3-6kwh storage , 400-800w of solar, and a small, efficient gas or propane generator. This will do fine to keep some lights on, the water pump running, fridge, fans, and devices going. It’ll take a bit of management though because you’re really trying to get the most out of your solar charge, running the generator for an hour or two a day to top the batteries off if needed. Thats still much better than running it 24h/d especially when running out for more fuel isn’t so easy. Its also a lot easier if you’re already using propane/ng to cook and have a 120g tank on site. Most of these systems will also trickle charge from the grid when needed. 
 

The above can be done pretty affordably, 5-8k for the bank, panels, and generator.  This goes up as you add in more convenience and resilience, mainly solar and storage capacity for whole home continuous use, full AC, that kind of thing. At a certain point you tip into a breakeven point where you wean yourself all the way off needing the grid and can just cut the cord. Whether this makes sense or not will depend on what you need and how long you can wait for the up-front investment to pay for itself. There may also be tax breaks depending on where you live. 

Edited December 14, 2022 by Pthigrivi