Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Power Walls

Heck no. I want a power brick. Its nothing more than a battery backup system when power goes out. Or you could set it up like a person fully off the grid. Use your solar to charge the brick and run your home during the day and then use the brick to power the home in the evening. A daily affair. With a large enough solar array and a large enough battery brick you can power your home totally from solar and battery power. I expect to do just that. However our home is fully electric including the water pump and heater and air. I will be using my Nissan Leaf battery modules. It is much simpler to wire up and check each module for problems before connecting them to the system. Using those recycled 18650 cells requires not only finding enough of them but you have to find enough of them that still have enough capacity to do the job you need. It is known that these cells can be dangerous but if you do the packaging like Tesla does with those small fuses per little battery you are going to have a much safer system. I for one would not install this on the house at all. I would however install it in a fire safe enclosure away from home just in case of a disaster that could burn your home down. With the Leaf Modules they are contained in a metal can and I will put the power brick off the side of the home and in a container that would keep any fire away from the home. Since the output will be AC it does not matter if the power brick is away from the home as AC will travel far enough with little loss that it will work just fine. So the trick is not the power brick but the charge controller and inverter you need to power your home. For us it all also need to be large enough to dry clothes, cook food on the range and microwave and pump water for the home and property. So we are not going to be doing a weenie little system. This will be an setup that will allow anyone to be completely off grid. It would however be a good thing if you do this completely off grid, to have a way to cook and heat the home just incase you have enough days to drain the batteries without enough light to charge with your solar. You do need to plan for the worst possible disaster. Doing this while still on the grid will require you to have the home cut off from the grid before your power brick comes on line if the main power goes out for any reason and to allow you to utilize the power brick as it was from the grid. Once back on the grid it will just be used during the evening while you sleep. Waiting to fill a need. Your power brick should last you a few days with zero power from any other source. Once that is done you need some emergency backup to the emergency back power brick.


 Pete :)