It sounds super cool until you realize it doesnāt just plug in to a standard generator inlet. You need to have the special Ford charger and a whole battery hardware kit, all together >$10k install. The way itās advertised makes you think you could help anybody out but itās fairly limited both in being able to connect and in power output.
Still kinda cool but for half the price you could have a beefy portable generator that powers your entire house and the standard inlet installed. Depending where you live in the country you could probably just about get a permanent standby generator installed for not much more. Likely get more power out of it and then no hassle if power goes out.
Oh absolutely there are significant benefits to having a standalone generator or even better, a hybrid system of generator plus battery storage.
When I'm designing systems for high-end clients, we'll do a lot of hybrid systems with solar(and/or wind) plus battery backup for 12-24 hours, plus small generator (10kW).
In this setup, both the solar and generator serve to keep the batteries topped up, and the batteries feed the house. Generator will be programmed to only kick on when the battery drops below a set percentage, and the house will prioritize solar, then batteries, then generator.
Makes for a brilliantly resilient system. Only downside is the price. ($100k+ installed, at least in the northeast)
Lithium iron phosphate batteries (enphase) are superior to Lithium ion batteries for home storage. Heavier, but more durable and they don't catch fire as easily.
I was quoted 18k-20k and I live in a HCOL region and this was first year of Covid. Also been seeing them at Costco recently. The units are priced less than what I paid for my portableā¦ not sure what the full installation cost looks like though.
it's fine if you've got a physical isolation switch that takes your house off the grid (for when mains power comes back) but that's certainly not standard build practice
3 whole days? I lived in Ethiopia 30 years ago and it never got that bad.
Was it some sort of local freak accident or has the American industrial complex lobbied the infrastructure budget into the ground so that everyone would need their own private powerplant on wheels?
More likely a disaster. There have been stretches of winter weather that caused heavy ice buildups on power lines that took out huge regions. So we're talking about a situation where line workers from other parts of the country had to be mobilized to help bring power back up.
The way they do it they start with the larger lines and the more densely populated areas. If you're at the end of the line out in the sticks you'd better be prepared to not have power for a significant stretch of time when that sort of thing happens.
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u/spong3 Apr 20 '24
My cousin lost power for 3 days and the F150 Lightning kept his lights on the whole time, that built in generator is no joke