Using PIP As A Generator

I don't believe my house needs continuous power. For these sorts of events, much of the house doesn't really need power at all.

The refrigerator and freezer have reasonable holdover, so their power source can be absent for hours at a time. A flashlight or battery powered lantern will cover a person left home at night for a while, no supplemental light is needed during the day. A small battery set on a small 12V solar PV system can run several CFL/LED lights and broadband modem for a while, though the aged batteries could use replacement now. A wood stove provides backup heat. A blower and circulating fan greatly improve its effectiveness, but are not mandatory. Camp stoves do the cooking, and several are on hand.

I'm not looking to maintain regular comfort, just to cover some essentials and the greatest discomforts.

 

The continuing vitality of this thread is a wonderful development compared to the echoing silence on the topic back when I bought my 1st Prius in 2003.

Now if I could only find the time to lash up my big AIMS inverter and all the other components I had bought... nah, nothing bad will happen this Winter

 

I installed my own system except for the Generac portion I would have liked to have put in solar panels to recharge the batteries, but back in 1999 they were more expensive and not as efficient as they are now. I haven't had to use it a lot but there have been times when the outage stretched out over days and once a full week. And some times when it was winter with temps down in the 20's. Not an every day thing but darn nice when you need it for more than just a few hours.

 

Loving my Prius today. Massive ice storm, tons of trees and limbs down. Lost power at 2:21 am and switched over from my big generator to my Prius around 6. Neighbors have stories of being out for 2 weeks after an ice storm and I would bet it will be days before we get it back this time. Have everything running - lights, TVs, DVRs, furnace and wood stove fan.

Go Prius Power!

 

Wow! That's just amazing!

 

So you have a regular generator as well?

 

Yes he does - it's just a few posts back .... of course reading IS over rated

although Iduno if I'd call an 8kW sine wave genset ''regular"
.

 

As always, so friendly and un-smug. What a guy!

 

Can it be imported? $1k is a bit steep but it could be very useful.

 

It should as J1772 is standard.

 

I have a 12 kw Generac, the UPS+Prius combo, and a 2400 kw Yamaha inverter-genset.

 

That was a different poster.

 

Yep - that's me skimming too fast.

IIRC, that's designed to run off Japans' 50hz utility. I'd be very leary about trying to import an appliance designed for a country that runs so many dissimilar voltages/frequencies .

 

FWIW, when I was at CES last month. I was at the Denso tent (they supply MANY parts to Toyota) and they had a concept on display of vehicle home (briefly mentioned at DENSO To Showcase Connected Car and Connected Home Technology at 2014 International Consumer Electronics Show ).

I asked them basically "so you can draw power from a car via J1772? The standard allows for that?" Their response was that it's a concept.

I thought they also had some other JDM-only EV where you could draw some relatively low voltage DC to run certain DC appliances/lights. My memory is foggy on that.

Nissan announced NISSAN | Nissan and Nichicon to Launch the "LEAF to Home" Power Supply System With "EV Power Station" which is via the CHAdeMO DC fast charge port on Leafs. I believe it's a shipping product but for Japan only.

 

Japan uses both 50Hz and 60Hz, depending on which island. But I believe the voltage is uniformly 100V, unlike our 115-120V. So an inverter designed for the Japanese market wouldn't do much good here.

The Japanese like to do things their own way: Until recently their CDMA cellular system used the same 850Mhz band that we use in North America, except that they switched the transmit and receive sub-bands, so U.S. CDMA phones would not work there.

 

One solution to the 50 hz 100 volt problem would be the very same type of UPS I'm using - the "online" type. They can convert to-from dissimilar frequency and voltage. 50 hz and 100 volts in, 60 hz split phase and 120/240 volts out, no problem. The only question is whether the imported device shown above would work with a North American Prius.

 

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