Storing Lower-Cost Energy in Your Lightning to Power Your Home and Returning Power Back to the Grid

[chl]

Planetary scientist who studies thermal systems here.

Nuclear winter would do it too. :/

Yes, I thought about that but was afraid to even think let alone say it out loud!
Especially with the recent news about the US restarting nuclear bomb testing, alas.

I'd prefer, say, a nice medium-ish volcanic eruption that would cool things not, but not too much, don''t want a world wide famine.

How's the North Atlantic current doing by the way? Should I buy a parka?

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[Scorpio3d]

I prefer to store excess Solar in the Truck battery and NEVER sell it back to the utility - they don't pay enough.
I wonder if those big data centres are getting discount prices for grid power and "guess who" is getting price increases to offset those discounted prices...

I agree 100%
I’m not always home when I am producing though so I’m actually in the process of adding some additional capacity to my existing power wall i.e. one more power wall and expansion packs
The utilities don’t pay enough! at this moment I am currently selling my excess for $0/kwh and my truck’s at 85%

 

[NW Ontario Ford Lightning]

It is a big cost to build out a home storage battery big enough to collect solar during the day, and charge the truck late in the day, but I had other reasons for a big battery bank (winter storms) so we just went for it anyway. Has been great to roll in at 6:00PM on a sunny summer evening and charge up the the truck from solar collected all day while I was on the road.
That said, the cost per kWh of the house battery, over a ten year period may be close to what I pay for off-peak utility electricity...but the problem is when there isn't any off peak electicity available during a 3-day winter storm - then the big battery pays for itself - at least for our situation.

 

[chl]

How about this, tested with Lightning and works! Intergates solar, battery, DC EV charging and V2X all in one modular system:

https://www.self2solar.com/products...ficate-cec-listed-copy?variant=50768981721363

See the video of how it works:

 

[LifeAsDane]

You're better off just pulling an extension cord into the house and running off the truck like I did during the Florida "Milton" hurricane last year. Paying to connect to the panel is a such a waste of time and money for what it does.

 

[NW Ontario Ford Lightning]

I found a Reliance critical loads centre a good option - easy DIY project for not a lot of money.
The 30A exterior plug could be easily powered by either the truck (with 30A 240 outlet) or a generator as needed.

Note this a few times on various threads: the average home with a house battery/solar/inverter set up doesn't need 30A 240 supply from the truck, you can just use 15A 120 and get along fine no matter what loads you run.
This is because in a full 24 hour day, your total energy use will be say 30kWh, and the truck could suplly 15A x 120v (1.8kW) x 24 hours = 43kWh per 24hr day.

To me, the only reason to want the 240 30A is if you don't have a battery/inverter/solar set up, and you instead wire in a critical loads panel (like the 306 Reliance) which needs a 30A supply to work.

 

[Danface]

In the last few days I've signed the "Home Inprovement Contract", "EV Ford Agreement from Sunrun" and for the "Interconnection of Sunrun/Ford system to National Grid" docs.

The system will also do a automatic cutover if the power goes out (and I still the ProPower to Panel backup if the system goes sideways and I need to manually cutover)

Slowly inching forward.

 

[NW Ontario Ford Lightning]

I think its pretty safe to say that most of us dont have our trucks at home for 24 hours a day

I would stay home if there is a major storm and power outage.

 

[Traconesu]

Requires Sunrun Home Integration System. Which after install is as much as $10k and doesnt work for many.

Seems like a pretty horrible idea to invest $10k for upwards of a $500 annual return and reduced availability of your truck to get that $500.

As I've said all along HIS is nothing but a carnival trick.... It has very little mathematically practical applications.

I just plug my home into a generator receptical and into the 7200 watt 240 volt bed receptical. Flip a manual transfer switch and I'm running off my truck . Granted i only have 7200 watts available to me but it powers my deep well pump just fine , all my lights fans , tvs, computers and limited kitchen appliances with no problem. That's only needed if my solar batteries are low because of a few cloudy days. Minimal costs compared to the SunRun system that often fails. Granted it's not automatic but works great at a fraction of the cost.

 

[Traconesu]

I prefer to store excess Solar in the Truck battery and NEVER sell it back to the utility - they don't pay enough.
I wonder if those big data centres are getting discount prices for grid power and "guess who" is getting price increases to offset those discounted prices...

That's exactly what I do. I used to use my excess solar energy to power an electric hot water heater that I installed prior to my natural gas water heater. Now I use the extra energy to charge my lightning.

 

[Traconesu]

This ^^^

We built our solar-battery system first, and the truck arrived late to the party, but like you have outlined, we use the truck as a backup at low but continuous load source.
Our average 24-hour power consumption is 37kWh so a back up of only 37/24 = 1.54 kW is all that is needed to keep the house batteries topped up during a grid down/limited sun period.
The since the 2024's the Lightning has the feature where the pro-power can be switched on with the truck off - very handy.
If the house battery and the truck both are used up, we have two back up generators. The best use of these is to run at about 70-75% of the generator capacity to recharge the house battery, then switch off the generator until the batteries are depleted again.
Our house battery is 147kWh, with room to grow as we need.

Sounds very similar to what I have except I havecloer to 55 kwh lithium batteries and only 13 kw of solar power. But a much lower daily consumption of < 20kwh. I do wish ford would come out with a software update for my 2022 so I didn't have to run my truck to use the Pro power and not have to turn off the auto 30 minute shutdown. An 11 kwh generac for backup runningfrom 1000 gallon propane tank, i try to keep 800 gallons in, an ecoflow delta pro 3, and ecoflow delta pro with dual fuel generator to keep them charged.

 

[Maquis]

I do wish ford would come out with a software update for my 2022 so I didn't have to run my truck to use the Pro power and not have to turn off the auto 30 minute shutdown.

What year is your Lightning? When I turn on ProPower, I get a message that the shutdown timer is disabled.
And having to leave the truck on isn’t a big deal for me. Turn off the headlights and HVAC & move on.

 

[Traconesu]

What year is your Lightning? When I turn on ProPower, I get a message that the shutdown timer is disabled.
And having to leave the truck on isn’t a big deal for me. Turn off the headlights and HVAC & move on.

Mine is a 2022. I haven’t tried to power my home for awhile but I'd have to start my truck , to get the screen to appear then start Pro power then go to vehicle and turn off the shutdown timer.

 

[Maquis]

Mine is a 2022. I haven’t tried to power my home for awhile but I'd have to start my truck , to get the screen to appear then start Pro power then go to vehicle and turn off the shutdown timer.

Mine was like that originally, but after an update, turning on the bed receptacles now automatically disables the shutdown timer.

 

[chl]

Agree with the comments about using the bed 240V 30A outlet (Pro Power On Board) and a $400 manual transfer switch Like the GENERAC 6853 or equivalent (will switch the neutral and hots).

I think I spent maybe $600 total including a 100ft 30A generator cord and inlet boxes, a bit of wire, and some more breakers for the GENERAC.

I already had a 10 circuit transfer switch (non-neutral switching) set up for my un-bonded generator, so I wired the GENERAC in a series-ish way so I didn't have to unwire/unmount the old transfer switch (simplified block diagram - continuous ground truck to panel per code).

Powers 10 "emergency" circuits, e.g., gas furnace fan, refrigerator, coffee pot, microwave, computer, lights and TV/Internet.

Fully tested, but haven't needed it yet - no power outages of any duration this year here - maybe an ice storm will come this winter?

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