Newbury--all I did was search the internet and there were many choices. My interest came from a pop-up I got that vanished before I could click on it so I know nothing about them.
ponytug--I don't want to do anything just yet but would like to learn more. I know about generators and know this is some sort of a storage arrangement but I sure would like to get rid of gasoline and what goes with it. I think the public would love some easier way for backup power for storm use and other short term use.
Whole house power would be a dream and I can see the day when it would work. The demand is there.
I see those pop up's, too. I think you could put together a pretty good home brew version with a couple of solar panels, an RV solar controller, some big batteries from Costco or Walmart on sale, and a good pure sine wave inverter. For less money.
We went to solar panels on the house when the expected return on investment got down to 7 years. It turned out to be closer to three and a half years. (The power company raised the rates faster than I planned, and we bought a plug in hybrid that saved us even more as the cost per mile on electricity was so much less.) So, yes, our power is now fully paid for, and any miles driven with an electric vehicle are now basically depreciation on the car and tire wear, not fuel costs. (Even if we were paying for the power, the electrical cost per mile, for say a Chevy Volt, is less than $0.05/mile, even in California.)
Then the power company started having trouble keeping the power on here, including several multi-day outages. I love my generator, but it is not quiet, and setting it up is tough on my spouse, so when the chance came to get whole house backup via Tesla powerwalls at a reduced price, we jumped on it. We are net energy exporters from basically March 1st to November 1st, and the batteries enable us to be self powered indefinitely during that time period.
If I were doing it over again, I would have put on closer to double the original solar to allow for the future charging of future cars. The cost per mile for running an electric vehicle is so much lower. Right now, they certainly aren't for everyone; you need to have round trips of under two hundred miles or so for many vehicles, and less in the wintertime, and chargers aren't everywhere, especially in rural America. I know when we trailer livestock that it would be more of a production to do it with an F-150E, but in California it would be doable in most areas, at least where we go.
As a side note, diesel is $6.79/gal here. I don't expect to see it under five again, ever. As oil companies practice return on investment for their shareholders, nobody is rushing to drill, so these prices are going to be around for some time.
Personally, I think that anyone who lives in fire areas, or earthquake areas, ought to be keeping the tanks full as part of daily living, whether it is an electric vehicle or not, but that is a whole other discussion. We have had fires blow up with no notice due to arsonists multiple times at multiple locations over the years that has certainly made the reality of fire front and center for us, and was no small part of why we added batteries, because we know how long it can be to restore power.
The battery sizes in vehicles are multiples of what gets installed on houses. You could easily power your house overnight and drive to work the next day for most folks. The F150E is being talked about as supplying on the order of 7kW range for powering the house, from a 115-155kWh battery (guesstimate).
All the best,
Peter
