Back-up Power for Emergency and Essential Loads.

Intense winter storms in January left us with 4 feet of snow and no power, water or heat. Our passive solar house with a gridtied solar electric system works great when there’s sun. Doesn’t work at all when the utility power is down.

Of course, the irony of the fact that we sell battery backup systems and, in fact, have a warehouse full of the parts you need to set up these simple lifesavers hit us smack in the face. Oh well, oh well.

The first couple of days with no power were okay. We moved stuff from the ‘frig to a cooler out in the snow. Our house held its heat pretty well, and we could cook on the propane fed kitchen stove. But by the third day of no power, the bedroom temps were around 40 degrees at night. Brrrrrrrrrr! Unlike many of the homes in this area, we do not have a wood-burning stove. Our hydronic baseboard heaters rely on electricity to power a pump. Time for action!

We were lucky to have access to heavy-duty 200 amp hour 6-volt DC batteries. We picked up six UPG batteries and a Magnum sine wave inverter/charger from the warehouse and plopped them onto the bedroom floor close to our utility room. The UPG’s are sealed batteries so we didn’t have to worry about leakage. The inverter’s job is to convert the DC electricity coming from the batteries into AC electricity, which can power our house. These Magnum inverters/chargers are really smart; they can charge batteries from grid electricity or from solar panels or from a gas or propane generator and then feed the electricity right where you need it.

Luckily, also, when we wired our house we planned to add a battery back up system later. We had separated out the essential appliances we want to be able to power in emergency: the water pump, the heater pump for our hydronic baseboard heaters, and the plugs in our office so we can run computers and phone. But you can just as easily run a cord with multiple plugs

From past experience living entirely off the grid with solar electricity, we know that refrigerators and electrical appliances with heat elements are huge energy draws and so we did not plan to power them in an emergency. (cont'd)