Winter storm 2022 (Huntsville, Madison, Redstone Arsenal: apartment, water heater, tornadoes)

[harry chickpea]

IMO, the whole house generators are not a good solution for most people. If you have someone on medical equipment, then maybe. Otherwise they suck money and then they die.

I remember after a hurricane in Florida when the relative of a neighbor was so pleased that they had a full backup generator and were cruising along as if nothing had happened - for about two days until they had to try to find gasoline. Even back then with low gas prices, those two days used a crazy amount of fuel.

Natural gas is going to continue to increase in price, with much of commercial electrical generation already using it, and boatloads of it being shipped overseas where markets will pay more for it.

The sweet spot for an emergency generator is usually an inverter generator capable of around 2,000 to 6,000 watts, where it won't operate everything all at once, but with load shifting you can keep running much as normal using minimal fuel. The downside is that you have to know how to operate one and be willing to do it.

[johnsonkk]

Originally Posted by Rick In Madison

Anybody have a Generac/Kohler/Briggs & Stratton standby/whole house generator? It's always times like these when you think about dishing out the cost for one.

I can find quotes for natural gas units. Is it safe to assume the installation cost is about 70%-90% of the cost of the unit based on experience of the readers?

I haven't experienced the rolling blackouts, yet.... Besides having a NG heat pack on the HVAC, we have NG water heater and fireplace. However, the fireplace was only fired up once 21 years ago when we bought the house. Worst case scenario if its too cold for too long of time, I could fire up the fireplace and place a box fan near the front to draw the heat out.

We have both a generac whole house generator as well as experience with stand alone generators. For the generac, the price includes installing as I don’t think they’ll sell it without installation. It’s incredibly difficult to install as they are installed alongside your entire house fusing panel. Plus they add in whole house surge protectors for not only generator but the whole house electrical system. So any future surges within the lines will offer protection from smoked electric lines or components.

We got the generac due to constant electrical outages, which only affected the street or neighborhood. The lines had old fuse type system so any squirrel would cause an outage and with small numbers affected, responses were often slow. Plus resale of the house could now include whole house backup generator similar to advertising a house with a pool or alarm system. It took nearly a year from the first phone call to have working generac generator. Supply chain issues, scheduling lead times, it was unexpected having to wait so long. Price was around $10k. Runs on propane that was already in the house (tank). The longest the generator ran was about 8 hours with some storm outages.

Smaller generators worked but we were having too many outages and you’d have to be at home to begin setting up. When electricity does go out, plan for time to dig out generator and begin running cable farm thru your house. Key is to use “ethanol free” gas for any portable generators. They will quickly not start if ethanol gas is used and they sit for a few months. Sold our portable generator for the same price as originally purchased so they hold their value!

Another option is to get the large battery backups, such as APCs. A good size one will run about $150 and can power a internet router and modem for 12+ hours along with charging phones. They are silent and simply store energy until needed. Plus built in surge protection.

[Rick In Madison]

Thank you all for the input on the whole house generator subject. Good points for me to think on before making a decision.

Is the juice worth the squeeze.

[johnsonkk]

Originally Posted by Rick In Madison

Thank you all for the input on the whole house generator subject. Good points for me to think on before making a decision.

Is the juice worth the squeeze.

You’re welcome. We think it was a good decision. Sure we don’t use as much as a car but it’s nice having heat and AC along with electricity for freezer, fridge and water heater. Plus work from home. If all electrical outages were less that 15 min, maybe no but we’re in rural Madison county and the track record we experienced pushed the decision for whole house generator. Plus we already had large propane tank, with easy accessible piping.

Don’t know why Northern Tool has generacs for $6,400. Maybe the supply chain issue is resolved.
https://www.northerntool.com/shop/to...4298_200854298

[johnsonkk]

Much more detail in this Knoxville news article than in local papers.

https://www.wvlt.tv/2022/12/28/tva-r...ing-blackouts/

TVA said they told local providers to do rolling blackouts on both December 23rd and 24th. They said they will be looking into the reasons they couldn’t meet demand.

[MisterEd51]

Wouldn't whole house generators make more sense for fairly new homes? Especially if they are built with energy conservation and efficiency in mind.

[harry chickpea]

Originally Posted by MisterEd51

Wouldn't whole house generators make more sense for fairly new homes? Especially if they are built with energy conservation and efficiency in mind.

Not particularly, except that the main electrical entrance can be made with it in mind, saving a few hundred bucks.

At some point, we may re-think how appliances are designed and how they interface with power sources. In Florida, FPL had a program that allowed discounts to the power bill if you allowed them to install a controller that could turn off your pool pump, electric water heater, and air conditioning based upon demand on the grid. In effect, it allowed rolling blackouts of the most energy hog appliances in your home. It saved the company from having to overbuild peak power units, and trickled some of that savings back to ratepayers.

What has stealthily become a major problem is that more and more appliances demand a consistent and reliable trickle amount of power to function. The first sign of the disease was the VCR that constantly blinked 12:00. Rather than being designed like a computer with a BIOS battery, and an ultra-low power "wake-up" circuit, it went for a display obvious enough to complain when power was interrupted.

Almost anything that has a remote control or can be operated through your phone is wasting huge amounts of power over time, via a form of "death by a thousand cuts." The stealth continues when wall warts are replaced with sockets or extensions that have multiple USB ports built in. No one bothers to think - "I wonder how much power this constant access to USB is using?" In that way, smart homes may be particularly stupid.

Rethinking how one might access power with more advanced appliances - how about a small solar array that charges a replaceable rechargeable battery which in turn supplies a low voltage DC circuit to each advanced outlet in your home? Then, appliances would either have two plugs or a new combo plug. The wake circuits would be constantly powered (only) by the solar array, and when a need for full wakeup of an appliance was needed, it would open the circuit to the 120 or 240 volt supply.

During a mains power outage, the system would automatically adapt, where needs were prioritized and load shedding and load sharing optimized, allowing the home use of a very small generator that sipped fuel, or even a battery bank for short outages. During a situation where rolling blackouts are now needed, the wake circuits would know to minimize or shift use of the high current circuits, all without intervention, keeping the power on to everything else.

The cost of mains power will continue to rise. Costs of complete off-the-grid systems are even more, when amortized. In a way, data centers and telephone exchanges have been doing a variation of the above for years.

I suspect that something along these lines will be inevitable, as a way to make infrastructure safer and more reliable, reduce insurance payouts when medical equipment shuts off, or a drop in mains power spoils expensive multi-day processes, as well as reducing overall infrastructure costs.

[johnsonkk]

Originally Posted by MisterEd51

Wouldn't whole house generators make more sense for fairly new homes? Especially if they are built with energy conservation and efficiency in mind.

As a backup option?

[dwhisent]

Originally Posted by harry chickpea

At some point, we may re-think how appliances are designed and how they interface with power sources. In Florida, FPL had a program that allowed discounts to the power bill if you allowed them to install a controller that could turn off your pool pump, electric water heater, and air conditioning based upon demand on the grid. In effect, it allowed rolling blackouts of the most energy hog appliances in your home. It saved the company from having to overbuild peak power units, and trickled some of that savings back to ratepayers.

Huntsville Utilities had a program like this in the 80s, called Cycle and Save, I had it on my HVAC and water heater. It made service calls a pain, because every time the tech cut power to the HVAC and turned it back on, they had to wait some minutes for the controller to reset.

[harry chickpea]

Originally Posted by dwhisent

Huntsville Utilities had a program like this in the 80s, called Cycle and Save, I had it on my HVAC and water heater. It made service calls a pain, because every time the tech cut power to the HVAC and turned it back on, they had to wait some minutes for the controller to reset.

Yeah, that sounds like 80s technology. Back then a 300 baud modem was fast. I forget how the control signal was sent, and the way search engines work these days my boolean search isn't showing up anything relevant. My guess is some sort of radio signal or subcarrier that could be selectively filtered.

Part of the problem in the older systems was the length of time appliances were cut off. A 20 minute cutoff of an AC or heater generally won't cause a temperature shift that is unrecoverable. Back then 2 and 3 HOUR shut-offs were common. Part of that was caused by the load shed system cutting off ALL loads in the system at once, rather than a more advanced system that allowed each place getting cut off for 20 minutes in sequence.

Fixing peak power issues can be a two edged sword, as it can effectively cap an entire grid area's capability. Without incentive to construct peak power units, the system runs closer to full load constantly. That means when there is a turbine failure or primary transformer taken out, there isn't the redundancy to make up for the loss.

Electrical engineers are amazingly smart, and the reliability of the grid we have had is a testament to that. I suspect that they will come up with ways to have a centralized and distributed generation base that resolves a lot of issues. Controlling grid tie power is just a start.