• SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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    19 days ago

    plug a solar panel into a large battery backup, plug the major appliances into that.

    Utility companies don’t need to know shit.

    • doctor0710@lemmy.zip
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      19 days ago

      My thoughts exactly. Also I wouldn’t really like to risk my stuff by connecting to their infrastructure anyway. At least over here, I saw how incompetent they are.

        • undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch
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          4 days ago

          I was going to say California. We have constant outages — having grown up in blizzards and tornados I never imagined they wouldn’t be able to keep power on here. It’s bad, like I mean when there’s a little wind it’s probably not staying on.

    • artyom@piefed.social
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      19 days ago

      That’s what I have. Basically a small-ish parallel electrical system that runs critical loads like a mini split, refrigerator, water heater, etc. And a small UPS for modem/server.

      • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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        18 days ago

        These can output 1800W, 1100Wh, Starts at CAD$700 then you just pay more for more storage for bigger systems.

      • clif@lemmy.world
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        19 days ago

        Out of curiosity, how do you have that setup (at a high level)?

        I’ve got a bluetti system for emergency power (12kWh, 6kW AC output) but I need to plug things directly into it. It’d be nice to feed it directly to my house wiring but … selectively. That is, I wouldn’t want to power the HVAC but it would be nice to not have to shuffle the fridge/freezer plugs from the wall to the inverter.

        Dedicated circuit(s) with a manual switch from mains to inverter, I’m guessing? But then we get into all the extras required to do that safely and avoid back feeding the grid.

        Granted, they have systems/setups specifically for whole house power but I don’t want to feed the whole house, just the important circuits/appliances.

        • lightnsfw@reddthat.com
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          18 days ago

          Dedicated circuit(s) with a manual switch from mains to inverter, I’m guessing?

          That’s how one of the hospitals I worked at did it. Probably wasn’t a manual switch though.

        • artyom@piefed.social
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          18 days ago

          Basically made a really sturdy pergola and then mounted solar panels to it. Ran that wiring to the MPPT, batteries and inverter in the garage. Put in a new small breaker box right next to the existing one, which made it real easy to just grab the wires for the critical loads and run them over to the new panel.

          No need to worry about backfeeding, as I said they’re parallel electrical systems, so it’s not possible.