Prius Powers Home During Ice Storm
Ice Storm Victim Improvises Prius-to-Home Energy Generator
A Massachusetts man - faced with no power in the recent ice storm, powered up the family Prius to create electricity: The hybrid car made enough electricity to run the essentials; the fridge, the lights, the TV, the wood-stove fan. During the power outage, it supplied 17 Kilowatt hours of energy to his home for three days.
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How did he do it? The Harvard Press described how the hybrid’s battery ran the house essentials for electrical engineer John Sweeney and family. He dug up an inverter which made 120v AC from 12v DC current and he wired it into the hybrid electric Prius, creating V2G technology on the fly.
V2G; vehicle to grid technology - is what will make it possible to reduce the amount of new power that we would otherwise need to add to the grid, because electric cars can act as rolling storage batteries to supply emergency extra electric power.
As such, V2G is of great interest to utlities and state governors seeking to reduce expenses and NIMBY issues associated with building more power stations. Vehicle to Grid technology reduces the need to build more power stations, by evening out grid loads; by swapping power back and forth as needed between electric vehicles and the grid.
But we don’t call it V2G when it’s your electric Prius powering your home, of course; the correct technical acronym is P2H; Prius2Home.
Last year the NYT reported on a similar case of another disaster victim powering his home in the same way; but this one employed his P2H power during a hurricane.
Related stories:
Electric Car Plows 4 Feet of Snow!
Boring Electric Car Still Coming in 2010
Photo of electrical damage in an ice storm by WindsurfGirl
Via NYT Green Inc
Nice Story
Was the engine running constantly for three days?
No, not constantly - but intermittently, quoting the Harvard Press:
“The device allowed the engine to run every half hour, automatically charging the car battery and indirectly supplying the required power.
Helly Swartwood of Fairbank Street described a similar approach designed by her husband Malcolm Carley. They used that system until they could borrow a generator from a family member.”
He powered the fridge during an ice storm? typical!
Just wondering if I could use my Chevy Silverado with the Duramax Diesel that has an OEM 225 AMP Alternator to do the same ? I believe idling a diesel will not damage an engine as much as idling a gasoline engine. Plus, the diesel at idling will only use approx. 1/3 of a gallon / hour.
Hey Don, your rig will certainly work. Just buy and inverter at the rated output you need and hardwire it in. A 2k watt Inverter will do ‘most’ home appliances and with 225 amps of 12vdc, thats plenty.
You might consider an extra battery in the rig with an isolator too, you could hardwire the inverter in (#4 cable) and always have that electrical capacity right under the hood.
This the second time in as many weeks I’ve read about the prius as a home emergency generator. Tony might’ve been too gracious to mention it, but there’s nothing particularly revolutionary about a 12v-120v inverter. It works on most anything with an alternator, Prius or otherwise. The cool part is that the motor can run only part of the time. The big oilburner would have to be running all the time.
There are also very nice units that connect quickly to the rear power take-off of a tractor. Not to mention the fun you can have with a coal-fired stationary steamer, or a Rathbun waste-gas engine! All this is well and good for those of us seeking homestead power independence, or to be a snowstorm hero (although it doesn’t really save one any money). I love it.
But it does rather run counter to the Prius mindset, doesn’t it? Just imagine the potential for atmospheric pollution! It’s like putting a wacking big condenser in there to improve your 0-60 times. You prove a certain point, but commit a year’s worth of enviro crime in just hours.
And everybody PLEASE remember, as you take to the field with pliers and jumper cables: you MUST have a DPDT (”Frankenstein”) switch installed, or be well-practiced in safely pulling an electrical meter head, to connect your own power source to your house circuits. If you screw this up, you can not only kill yourself, but unwittingly kill a lineman miles away. And, oh yeah, blow up your AC motors when the power comes back on.
Bob A., that was really funny. Sad, true, and funny.
Oh for heaven’s sake! Just run a heavy duty extension cord from the inverter to a power strip and plug your fridge and whatever you need into the strip.
And while I’m at it, hardly an enviro crime. How much dirtier is a Prius per KWH than a coal-fired power plant?