Installed a $1,300 investment to avoid kicking myself in the head if the grid goes down.

[chl]

I understand your point, and I agree that my install does not comply with the NEC which is why I am choosing to not go into details on this site or recommend to others. That being said, between the GFCI protection on the truck, and the path back to ground on the house I am confident in the safety of the system. I will remove it should I ever move out as I wouldn't want someone else utilizing it.

To add, when you have a switched neutral with a sub panel the NEC also requires you to drive a ground rod for that path to go back to ground which is indicated in your video. Do you think all of the people that bought the generac transfer switch/panel have also driven ground rods and bonded to the chassis of their trucks?

I believe the newest NEC says that it should simply be attached to a grounding system and grounding electrode system and as I understand it they changed the language that suggested it needed to be very close by, e.g., the ground rod nearby the portable gen in the video. The GENERAC carries this requirement:

So if you have the truck ground connection attached to your house grounding system (ground wires) and to its ground electrode system (ground bus, ground rods, etc.) you are in compliance. I got that information from a post by an expert in the NEC and grounding systems whose is also a professor at a major university and publishes things on-line frequently on the subject.

However, if you wanted to put a ground rod near where the truck is parked, I'd say find a chassis ground lug and connect a nearby ground rod and wire to that. That would be the best way.

There is a convenient place inside the 12V battery compartment for example as shown above, or you could find/create one nearer the bed of the truck perhaps.

Alternatively, one might use a 120V type plug, leave the hot blade unconnected, connect the ground and neutral to a grounding conductor connected to a nearby ground rod, and plug into one of the 120V outlets (I repeat, no connection to the hot pin). I believe the code might require at least 10AWG or 8 AWG for the grounding conductor, so you'd have to use both the neutral and the ground pin on the plug to make the ground connection to that size copper wire. A chassis ground lug would be a better way of course, as noted above.

Anyway, from my perspective, there is no reason NOT to connect the ground wire if you are using a neutral switching transfer switch and wire everything correctly - I did that and it works with the Lightning just fine. (If a reader of this isn't using a neutral switching transfer switch, why not? Is it the cost? You paid at least $40k for your truck, what is a $400 transfer switch compared to that?)

I only made a point of mentioning this because I read a forum post some time ago where someone was powering a house under renovation with a Lightning with the ground wire unconnected, so there was no ground connection from the Lightning to the service panel ground.

One day, when the ground (earth, dirt, grass) was wet I believe, they touched the truck body and felt a tingle. It appears that their body had become part of a ground loop from the truck neutral to the service panel to the service panel grounding system through the earth and back to the truck chassis to the bonded neutral.

Of course wet ground (earth) is much more conductive than dry ground, but this could be a real issue if some one with a pacemaker should encounter such a 'tingle' - what could that do to their pacemaker?

Just a real-life example which proves the wisedom of the NEC requirements.

And a word to the wise....

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[chl]

Here's the change about the grounding (attached pdf).

 

[Brons2]

well.... it depends...

some of us would bristle at the thought of spending 'that much money' on such an un-needed, un-used piece of equipment... although, in the moment, it makes you happy.
Yes, peace-of-mind is what marketing makes us feel like we need to spend money on, but, frankly, we are spoiled. We think, or fear, that somehow a power outage is just 'the end of the world', or it feels like it in the moment, especially when it's not just you, but your spouse, or your kids, or, well, you know...

most of us will admit that having a utility power outage, for any 'extended' length of time, is very, very rare...so rare, in fact, that we rarely ever even 'plan' for it, since, well, the normal day-to-day life tends to help us rely on the basics that we have 24/7, without much thought, otherwise.

It's true, it 'hurts' not to have lights at night, or the fridge in the summer, or air conditioning inside a 'well-built' tight home, or TV for entertainment, or the thought of losing our battery power on our precious phones... yes, it does. But, is it worth 'a lot of money' just for those few moments?


We'll all have a different take on that.

Counterpoint: If I've got $600 worth of groceries in my fridge, it only takes a couple of outages to make what the OP has done, make sense.

 

[chl]

I'd add that severe weather (ice storm, derecho, hurricane remnant) is unpredictable more than a few days out if at all, a squirrel knocking out power for a whole region unpredictable, an accident nearby that took down a utility pole unpredictable...all those have occurred around here.

After the hurricane remnant came through and we lost power for several days, my wife finally said ok, I agree spend $1300 on a 8000W generator - so I did and while there were years when it did not get used, when it was needed it made it worth the expense.

1) two next door neighbors in their late 80's, a retired Col. and his wife, had just come home from the PX with a freezer full of meat - I was able to give them electricity to keep it from spoiling for several days.
2) another neighbor has a basement that has to have a sump pump running most of the time and after a day or so, the backup battery had gone dead - generator helped her keep her basement from flooding.
3) during an ice storm when it was 10F outside, the generator kept our furnace fan going, no pipes froze, and we stayed warm and fed, no food spoiled, the coffee pot worked as did the microwave.
4) in all of the outages, we were able to watch the local TV news, keep our land-line phone running (or charged in the case of cells) to stay in touch with our children and parents, or call for help in an emergency, etc.

So a backup power system may be more than just a convenience - it may be a life and property saver sometimes.

One of the reasons I bought a Lightning with the 9.6kW PPOB option was to provide backup power for the house. The generator still runs fine but it is loud and burns gasoline, which I had to drive pretty far to get when power took out nearby gas station pumps one time.

Getting my Lightning set up to provide backup power did not cost me $1300, I already had much of the wiring done when I got the generator, so it cost me about $600 or so, most of that was the $400 for the GENERAC 6853 and about $100 for the generator wire to reach from my driveway to the back of my house where the generator input box was.

As for the cutting the ground wire, which I did NOT do or need to do, think about it as if you are wiring up a sub-panel from a bonded service panel. The sub-panel will be unbonded, and you have an equipment ground continuous from service panel to sub-panel. Bonded sources, like the Lightning or any bonded generator should be connected to a grounding system and the ground wire from the Lightning to the service panel and its grounding system (ground bus, ground rods, etc.) provides that. Simple.

 

[AMG]

We installed a 10kW grid-tied solar array ten years ago, and it has worked flawlessly. But at least once a year I remind myself that the system will be a 0kW array if the grid goes down.

Could you have a manual service disconnect from grid power, then some method to provide 120VAC to your PV solar inverter, so that it thinks you are on grid, then it would activate and you could run your home off your PV solar, all while disconnected from AC grid power?

At that point, so long as the sun is up and it meets your needs, you do not need the 240v 30A from Pro Power. But should that be needed, the inverter turned off, and can use ProPower?

I am no electrician.

 

[hturnerfamily]

Counterpoint: If I've got $600 worth of groceries in my fridge, it only takes a couple of outages to make what the OP has done, make sense.

my point is that for the majority of situations, the power is never off long enough to lose everything is a refrigerator, or to your point, the freezer... IF you don't open it. It's a BIG BIG Cooler... and yes, you CAN add ice into the fridge to make it last even longer : )

even the truck's regular 120v outlets would easily take care of a fridge and many more appliances or needs... no big investment needed, otherwise.

Everyone has a different take on the 'need' for some type of backup or 'wholehome' generator... which is why the big name brand suppliers advertise so often... but, when you look at a $600 fridge/freezer inventory, if that's really what it is, losing that is way less costly, although aggravating, than paying $10,000+ to install a Generic and run propane or natural gas to it, maintain it, etc. Just sayin.

 

[chl]

my point is that for the majority of situations, the power is never off long enough to lose everything is a refrigerator, or to your point, the freezer... IF you don't open it. It's a BIG BIG Cooler... and yes, you CAN add ice into the fridge to make it last even longer : )

even the truck's regular 120v outlets would easily take care of a fridge and many more appliances or needs... no big investment needed, otherwise.

Everyone has a different take on the 'need' for some type of backup or 'wholehome' generator... which is why the big name brand suppliers advertise so often... but, when you look at a $600 fridge/freezer inventory, if that's really what it is, losing that is way less costly, although aggravating, than paying $10,000+ to install a Generic and run propane or natural gas to it, maintain it, etc. Just sayin.

My solution was a lot less than $10k:

1) a $400 6853 GENERAC transfer switch
2) a 100ft 30A generator cord (10/4 wire from RV guard) $200
3) a bit of extra wire and breakers so I could have 10 circuits (under $100)
4) sweat equity - priceless?

So I can back up all my 'emergency' circuits for well under $1000.

Sure most of the time, the power is on, but when it is off, it is 99.9% of the time because of some natural disaster like a hurricane, ice storm, tornado, etc.

But 99.9999% of the time I don't have car/truck accidents and my house doesn't burn down, but I buy insurance for both every year for a lot more that $1000, or the $1300 the OP mentioned.

No way I would sink $10k into the HIS.
Power wise it only adds 2.4kW (an extra 10Ax240V) which as you note,
one could get from the 120V outlets in the frunk anyway.

$1300 is not a lot to spend for 'insurance' emergency backup, imho.

 

[kjhall]

Could you have a manual service disconnect from grid power, then some method to provide 120VAC to your PV solar inverter, so that it thinks you are on grid, then it would activate and you could run your home off your PV solar, all while disconnected from AC grid power?

At that point, so long as the sun is up and it meets your needs, you do not need the 240v 30A from Pro Power. But should that be needed, the inverter turned off, and can use ProPower?

I am no electrician.

I mulled something like that over for a long time before going the way I did. Here was my thinking...

As far as I know, my Fronius grid-tied inverter has no "throttling" capability. It dumps all the power it can pull from the solar array onto the grid. And that works very well when I'm grid-tied.

If there is no grid, and my house is only pulling say 1kW, and the array can provide 8kW, what will the inverter do? MAYBE it sees arising output voltage and throttles back? I don't know.

Conversely, if my house is using all the solar currently available and then I turn on the toaster, what happens? Similarly, what happens when the sun goes behind the clouds for ten seconds?

An inverter not tied to the grid (whether a true off-grid inverter or one fooled into thinking there is a grid) needs some sort of battery to keep things running with abrupt changes in solar power available or changes in demand.

And I couldn't come up with a clean foolproof way for the inverter and PPOB to work together nicely.

And finally, since my house is all-electric (heat pump, etc.), neither the array nor the Lightning could power everything at once. So I needed to choose which circuits to power in an emergency.

Hence the solution I implemented.

 

[kjhall]

my point is that for the majority of situations, the power is never off long enough to lose everything is a refrigerator, or to your point, the freezer... IF you don't open it. It's a BIG BIG Cooler... and yes, you CAN add ice into the fridge to make it last even longer : )

even the truck's regular 120v outlets would easily take care of a fridge and many more appliances or needs... no big investment needed, otherwise.

Everyone has a different take on the 'need' for some type of backup or 'wholehome' generator... which is why the big name brand suppliers advertise so often... but, when you look at a $600 fridge/freezer inventory, if that's really what it is, losing that is way less costly, although aggravating, than paying $10,000+ to install a Generic and run propane or natural gas to it, maintain it, etc. Just sayin.

To add some personal experience...

Many years ago a tornado snapped every power pole on the road in front of our house. Incredibly the power was only out for a day and a half (thank you Poudre Valley REA). But in that time I stupidly did not notice the water pooling under and in front of the fridge. The result was a damaged hardwood floor. Luckily the insurance covered refinishing, but of course not the hassle of moving everything out and back, and the time and mess to do this.

When I got the Lightning I was intrigued with using PPOB to avoid this situation and other short-term power outages. Did I buy the Lightning for this purpose? No. But was it worth $500 for the Generac panel and accessories to be able to? Yes (for me). Basically I got a free "generator" that isn't out in the weather, always starts up, and doesn't require a separate fuel source. I decided to invest a small amount of money so I can use it. I'm happy with my decision. To each his own.

 

[chl]

To add some personal experience...

Many years ago a tornado snapped every power pole on the road in front of our house. Incredibly the power was only out for a day and a half (thank you Poudre Valley REA). But in that time I stupidly did not notice the water pooling under and in front of the fridge. The result was a damaged hardwood floor. Luckily the insurance covered refinishing, but of course not the hassle of moving everything out and back, and the time and mess to do this.

When I got the Lightning I was intrigued with using PPOB to avoid this situation and other short-term power outages. Did I buy the Lightning for this purpose? No. But was it worth $500 for the Generac panel and accessories to be able to? Yes (for me). Basically I got a free "generator" that isn't out in the weather, always starts up, and doesn't require a separate fuel source. I decided to invest a small amount of money so I can use it. I'm happy with my decision. To each his own.

Yes to all that.

I have a gasoline powered 10kW peak (8Kw) generator that I have used in outages before I got the Lightning.

Let me tell you it's a whole lot of fun to start in an ice storm when it is 10F outside, or in hot humid 90F+ weather!

And of course you have to wait for the precipitation to stop to hook it up as well, and get it perfectly level.

And it is as noisy as a jet plane!

And if the power outage is wide spread and you run out of gas, you have to drive around looking for an operational gas station...then wait in line, and they may limit how many cans you can fill.

Sooo much better with the Lightning!

Although I have mine set up and fully tested, I am still waiting for an outage to occur.

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