Emergency Power

Emergency power is critical for almost any home or homestead if you are stuck with a prolonged power outage.  When hit with a natural or man made disaster (small or large) that takes out the grid, it’s not long before lack of electricity affects us.  How do I keep the food cold and the house warm?  When will the power come back on?  How do I keep the phone charged so I can maintain contact with the outside world?

After storm Sandy hit the east coast, it took over a week to get parts of Long Island back in operation.  The bigger the outage, the longer repairs are likely to take.

There are many ways from to keep the power flowing when the rest of the neighborhood is dark.

Emergency Power Option #1 – Gasoline Generator

The simplest emergency electrical option is to get a small generator and a large can of gasoline. Long extension cords can be run to vital items like refrigerator, freezer and microwave. Appliances are easy to power from a generator; they have cords attached.   Powering something like your furnace is more difficult.  You would have to open the wiring junction box and splice in a cord end. This is easy for an electrician to “jerry-rig” it but not for the average homeowner.

If you plan ahead, you can have a transfer switch installed next to your existing electrical panel. With this transfer switch installed, you can run a larger cord from the generator to a dedicated receptacle that feeds a small “critical loads” sub-panel. For the most part, a generator doesn’t need to back-up your entire house, just vital items. The transfer switch prevents you from back-feeding the utility grid (see “Solar Electric Basics” for more information on this danger) by isolating your generator from the main panel.  (Editor’s note:  Top photo in the post is our generator “dog house”, which is hard wired into our home power system.  Photos below show primary and secondary breaker boxes in our home.)

Gasoline Generator Pros:

• power when you need it
• portability
• relatively inexpensive

Gasoline Generator Cons:

• noisy
• need refueling
• smelly exhaust
• fixed power capacity

A generator has a rated power output listen in watts or kilowatts. They can also produce small bursts of power needed for motors starting, but then go back to their rated amount. If you aren’t using much power, the generator still is running, wasting energy. A small generator can cost a few hundred dollars to upwards of two thousand.

Emergency Power Option #2 – Battery Backed-Up Systems

Next rung up on the emergency electrical power food chain are Battery Backed-Up Systems. These are not car batteries, but deep cell ones. They are heavier, more expensive, and designed differently. (Deep cell battery article is coming soon.)

This type of system has a battery bank that is connected to an inverter. The inverter changes the 12v or 24v DC voltage to a usable 120/240v AC voltage used in your house. Then the inverter is connected to the critical load panel through the transfer switch. Some hybrid inverters already incorporate the transfer switch internally, connecting automatically; fast enough that your electronic items won’t know that there is an outage.

Battery Backed-Up System Pros:

• quiet operation
• no gas exhaust
• no cords
• no refilling a gas tank.

Battery Backed-Up System Cons:

• limited amount of power available before they need to be recharged
• may require a small generator to recharge them during prolonged outages

However, one hour of generator run time can keep the batteries charged for hours.  For short interruptions lasting only a couple hours, the batteries can keep things going and then recharge when the power returns.

Moving up on the list is to have solar panels recharging the batteries, but that is the most expensive system and is an article all to itself.

Emergency Power Option #3 – Spot Chargers

Section added by Laurie, because we’ve ended up with more short term than long term outages – thankfully!

To provide lighting and power for small electric devices, consider solar or crank powered lamps and chargers.  We’ve added a several solar and crank products to our emergency preparedness supplies, including:
A lantern with a solar panel and hand crank for charging that also has a USB charger built in for charging cell phones and other small electronics, LED Crank flashlights and Emergency radio with solar panel, crank power, flashlight and cellphone charger.

For short outages, having a little light and contact with the outside world can make the time fly much faster. The new LED products provide a lot more light at a fraction of the power requirements of older flashlights (we’ll be doing a review of emergency flashlights soon).  Lamps often come with different lighting levels (like the one above), so you can set it bright enough for reading or turn it down to night light level to conserve power.  These three options are all light and portable, and would also be handy for camping.

This is a guest post by Jerry Noel.  Jerry is a Wisconsin Master Electrician and a NABCEP Certified solar installer. NABCEP is a voluntary credential, considered to be the cream of the crop for renewable energy professionals. NABCEP stands for North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners.

Over the course of upcoming posts, Jerry will do case studies using his old house (they just moved) to give you a more in depth feel for what is required, how it is put together, and possibly the costs involved. Currently, he is a foreman for Krantz Electric  in Verona, WI. They are located a few miles to the south-west of Madison. Krantz Electric does residential, commercial and solar electric projects. In the past, I have taught solar electric theory and installation for the IBEW, Midwest Renewable Energy Association, and Solar Energy International.  Please visit the Krantz Electric website for more information.

BR>
Common Sense Homesteading is

about using common sense to be more self-reliant, with an emphasis on home
food production.

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