Power your fridge and few lights from MIEV (or Leaf) - $1800

[tbleakne]

If you just want to keep your refigerator and a few CFLs powered during a power outage, there is a cheaper solution. You connect a 600W sine-wave inverter to the Leaf's 12V battery terminals. You leave the Leaf powered on so that it can keep the 12V battery charged from the main pack. I have verified that my refrigerator never draws more than 530W, even when defrosting. I believe this connection (not the accessory plug) could easily handle this size inverter. The average power drawn by my refrigerator over a 24hr period is much less, only 1.2 kWh, so I could handle quite a long outage.

See my post from Dec 2011 when I experienced an outage after a wind storm in the Los Angeles area.

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1720&p=161677#p161677

I never actually tried this because I had trouble finding quick-disconnect terminals that would fit the Leaf's 12V battery posts.

 

[wwhitney]

If you just want to keep your refigerator and a few CFLs powered during a power outage, there is a cheaper solution. You connect a 600W sine-wave inverter to the Leaf's 12V battery terminals. You leave the Leaf powered on so that it can keep the 12V battery charged from the main pack.

So what is the standby load of the Leaf just from being on?

Wayne

 

[TonyWilliams]

So what is the standby load of the Leaf just from being on?

Wayne

Turn on your energy screen... Several hundred watts.

 

[Desertstraw]

This would be a useful backup at $500. It wouldn't work for rural homes or camping because you need all the energy in your battery to get there and back,

However, this gives me an excuse to raise a pet peeve. As solar power becomes more common, and we have it now, one of its most significant uses is now prevented. In case of grid power interruption for a period of time, natural events like snow storms or hurricanes, the lack of energy can be not merely inconvenient but life threatening as here in the Phoenix area during the summer. Under present rules, grid tied solar systems are also shut down during grid outages because of some sort of timing problem when power is restored (I really don't want to quibble about this). You can buy an expensive device with batteries that will allow you to use solar power but it is not really practical. It seems that government should push for a practical device, not the hardest thing to make, to allow direct use of solar power and make its use legal. In that case there will be large amounts of energy available during daylight hours for such things as cool islands for people during our 115 degree heat, refrigerating food, keeping medical equipment going, maintaining connections over the internet, etc.

 

[Herm]

This would be a useful backup at $500. It wouldn't work for rural homes or camping because you need all the energy in your battery to get there and back,

Camping with a BEV?, perhaps in the parking lot of a nearby Wal-Mart

I would pay $1000 with no trouble (and I'm cheap), assuming its a sine wave output.. connecting a 1500w inverter to a 12V battery is not a trivial thing to do, it can draw 150A continuously... much better to use a 400V battery.

This will be a very popular option with Leafs in the Sunshine State

 

[Herm]

Turn on your energy screen... Several hundred watts.

I thought 250w, but perhaps its less if only the chademo port is active.. probably not much less since the BMS and CAN bus has to be on.

 

[lpickup]

Hey, could you plug this into the Chademo port, then plug in your portable charger into the electrical outlet, and charge through the J1772 port while you drive?

Kidding...KIDDING! :lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[FairwoodRed]

Desertstraw,

They already have solutions for your pet peeve. All you really need is a 240v power source for the solar system to sync to and a transfer switch. Here’s a link to one source I found. It’s designed for a 12v battery, but since your solar system could provide most of the power needed, you probably won’t need a whole string of batteries. It fits your criteria of cheap and with the cheap, comes a certain lack of features and required knowledge to operate safely.

I know that you don’t want to quibble about it, but the “some sort of timing problem” is one of the two major safety issues when you connect any power source to the grid. If the two sources are not in sync, you can get wild fluctuations in voltage that can damage things in your house and increase fire risk. The other major safety issue is that if you are supplying power to the grid while a lineman is working on the lines, you can kill him. That’s why they shutdown when the grid goes away.

If you want easy to operate and system fail-safe’s, those will cost more money, as your research has already told you.

 

[TonyWilliams]

Desertstraw,

They already have solutions for your pet peeve. All you really need is a 240v power source for the solar system to sync to and a transfer switch. Here’s a link to one source I found. It’s designed for a 12v battery, but since your solar system could provide most of the power needed, you probably won’t need a whole string of batteries.

I guess just an auto transfer switch would work. The $64 question is how much battery to get the solar "bootstrapped".

SPECIFICATIONS:
Continuous output power: 5000 Watts
Surge power capability (peak power): 10,000 Watts
DC input / operating voltage: 10 to 15 Volts
Output voltage: 240 Volts AC
Output frequency: 60 Hz +/- .05 Hz
Battery low voltage alarm: 10.5 +/- 0.5 Volts
Battery low voltage shutdown: 10.0 +/- 0.5 Volts
No load minimum operating temperature: 30 - 150 deg F
Full load maximum operating temperature: 150 +/- 5 deg F (automatic shutdown)
Low voltage and over voltage alarm and protection
AC Output Socket Type: dual 240
Low input voltage shutdown: 10V
Internal fuse protection
Product size (L x W x H): 22.5 X 8.26 X 7 (in.)
Weight: Unit: 24 lbs; Boxed: 26 lbs

 

[Nubo]

Hey, could you plug this into the Chademo port, then plug in your portable charger into the electrical outlet, and charge through the J1772 port while you drive?

Kidding...KIDDING! :lol: :lol: :lol:

Well, there would be some small conversion losses, which could easily be made up from using a windmill.

 

[FairwoodRed]

I guess just an auto transfer switch would work. The $64 question is how much battery to get the solar "bootstrapped".

The manual said that it uses 1A DC under no load, so a typical small car battery would last 33 hours like that. Under load???

I think the larger question is how much battery to get you thru the normal fluctuations during the day. My system varies a lot because we have very few cloud free days. As a result, it rarely produces a constant power level. You would want enough battery to smooth out those dips and to handle the reduced output of early evening.

 

[garygid]

Typical grid-tie solar inverters are not designed to be able
to produce less than full AC power for whatever amount of
sunshine that they have available.

So, when the sun is out, and they will produce 5000 watts,
but your house is only using 600 watts, the Solar Inverter
just assumes that it can push its full output back into
something, usually the grid. If it tries to push that power
into the house, the voltage would rise too high, and the inverter
will shut off, rather than just push less power.

I think that most grid-tie inverters have this inability to
throttle back their power generation.

It might only take a firmware change to get the typical
solar inverter to reduce output when the grid/house
voltage rises.

 

[lemketron]

Typical grid-tie solar inverters are not designed to be able to produce less than full AC power for whatever amount of
sunshine that they have available.

So, when the sun is out, and they will produce 5000 watts, but your house is only using 600 watts, the Solar Inverter just assumes that it can push its full output back into something, usually the grid. If it tries to push that power into the house, the voltage would rise too high, and the inverter will shut off, rather than just push less power.

I think that most grid-tie inverters have this inability to throttle back their power generation.

It might only take a firmware change to get the typical solar inverter to reduce output when the grid/house voltage rises.

Makes sense... So when is someone going to solve this for EV drivers who have grid-tied PV systems?

I'd really love to hear of a solution for getting from where we are today, to being able to do what the Nissan Leaf-to-home solution should be able to do, with the additional feature of being able to do it indefinitely if you have solar. It just seems so silly to purchase a separate battery backup system when we already own 20+kWh of storage in our car.

(Speaking of which, does anyone know if you can get power out of a Tesla Sedan's pack or is that not possible/practical without CHAdeMO?)

 

[mwalsh]

I'd really love to hear of a solution for getting from where we are today, to being able to do what the Nissan Leaf-to-home solution should be able to do, with the additional feature of being able to do it indefinitely if you have solar. It just seems so silly to purchase a separate battery backup system when we already own 20+kWh of storage in our car.

+100!

 

[rmjones]

has anyone purchased and used the MIEV with their LEAF?