Powerwall from Vector Solar

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Dynamic

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Topic # 201875 8-Sep-2016 10:40

I expressed interest in the PowerWall yesterday on the Vector web site. Out house does not have an ideal roofline for Solar, but I was interested in the PowerWall as a standby power supply.

I received a call form a very helpful Vector gentleman a short time ago and was given an approx $15,000 installed price. Higher than I expected, and certainly higher than I can justify spending at this point. My Googling had given me the impression that it might be in the $5000-$6000 region which may have been affordable for my intended use.

Dreams are free. Storing power is not. Oh well. I can potentially potentially come up with a DIY solution, but the PowerWall would have been much more attractive on the wall.

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timmmay

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Reply # 1625482 8-Sep-2016 10:47

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Powerwall is pretty low capacity and current, you'd probably need 3-5 of them to supply a house for any length of time. Not practical IMHO.

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Dynamic

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Reply # 1625497 8-Sep-2016 10:57

timmmay: Powerwall is pretty low capacity and current, you'd probably need 3-5 of them to supply a house for any length of time. Not practical IMHO.

I doubt most people would expect to keep an entire house running during a mains power outage, and I would hope most buyers would be properly educated so they don't have unrealistic expectations. Running a couple of lights, charging a mobile or two, running a laptop and the broadband router would be easily achievable. Certainly you'll not be cooking or heating using a Powerwall.

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timmmay

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Reply # 1625501 8-Sep-2016 11:02

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Dynamic:

I doubt most people would expect to keep an entire house running during a mains power outage, and I would hope most buyers would be properly educated so they don't have unrealistic expectations. Running a couple of lights, charging a mobile or two, running a laptop and the broadband router would be easily achievable. Certainly you'll not be cooking or heating using a Powerwall.

True. Though I have 110AH of SLA batteries meant for disasters, with them I can:

Run my broadband (using a Sentry Lite)
Charge my phone
Recharge AA batteries using a battery charge, which power LED lanterns and lamp lights, torches, radios and such
I could probably find a way to charge a laptop, but not really bothered about that

Of course you still need stored water, cooking equipment (camp stove), food, etc. I was considering doing a small solar system to keep the SLA batteries charged in case of a disaster, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

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Aredwood

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Reply # 1627644 12-Sep-2016 01:22

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I have a home brew version of this. 2X 100 Amp hour 12V deep cycle lead acid batteries. A charger connected to a timer so the batteries only charge on offpeak power.

Have gas cooking, water tanks (both drinking and non drinking), 12V fridge, old 3 phase petrol generator, 800W inverter. Just need a better food stockpile - currently only consists of whey protein.

Definitely want to add solar as well.

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Reply # 1627657 12-Sep-2016 07:26

I looked at doing that. To run things like a fridge or heating you need a huge inverter or inverters, to cope with peak draw, which gets expensive. With 800W you can probably run a few lights, maybe some electronics for a short period. What are you targeting with that setup @Aredwood?

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MikeAqua

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Reply # 1627696 12-Sep-2016 08:54

$3k would buy you a 7kW generator.

Mike

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Reply # 1627722 12-Sep-2016 09:01

I bought an electric start 2.8kva petrol generator just over 2.5 years ago for $700. Little bit noisy but not too bad. I run it for half an hour per month and it has always started easily.

Power from it is a bit dirty but so far only my UPS does not like it. Seems to run a medium fridge OK but have not tried it on our deep freezer. In an extended outage I would likely connect the fridge and freezer separately (alternately) just to avoid 2 lots of startup current.

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Aredwood

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Reply # 1628257 12-Sep-2016 22:50

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@Timmmay The 800W inverter is installed in my van. It's main use is running power tools. Useful both on job sites, and a likely disaster scenario is quite bad damage to my house. But not completely destroyed - So being able to use power tools to make temporary repairs could become very useful.

The inverter can easily run my desktop and laptop, as well as lights ect. And since the van is diesel - it uses hardly any fuel just idling. And is way quieter than the 3 phase generator.

Another issue is that I currently don't keep a dedicated fuel stockpile (apart from old oil for my boiler). So I would have a problem if a wide area disaster occurs, that disables / destroys every single petrol station in Auckland. Petrol is a pain to stockpile as it goes off meaning you need to rotate it. And Insurance companies normally have strict limits on the amount you can keep in your house. Due to the fire risk. Diesel is far preferable to store, and has a lower fire risk than petrol.

But I haven't decided If I just want to be able to survive a disaster (which I can do already). Or do I want to be able to continue living as if the disaster never happened.

Yet another issue is that there is a Civil Defence reporting centre only about 100M from my house. And the North Shore Civil Defence command centre is less than a kilometre away. Considering that the civil defence act allows private assets to be forcibly acquired during an emergency. Having generators, lights ect running could be a very bad idea.

Risk profile for my property - relativity minor earthquake will cause long term loss of piped water. As all of the council watermains for most of the North Shore are asbestos cement. That stuff hates ground movement. Medium to severe earthquake will cause the top floor to move sideways compared to the bottom floor. Would write off my house, but hopefully I could be bodge repair it as a temp measure. Far enough inland that tsunami risk = 0. Tornado would easily do alot of damage as well.

Side risk - 50 year old underground power cables could fail, separate or as part of another disaster. Street directly behind me had no power to 1/3 of properties for 3 days due to a phase failure. Have previously been multiple separate incidents of phase failures and a neutral failure in my street.