Emergency Battery Backup - EV?

[Arkayology]

I recently purchased an EV and found that I have a the ability to plug a household appliance into the car using a vehicle to load adaptor. Naturally, I thought this would be useful for my reef during a power outage. Have you used your EV to power anything on your reef before? What did you power and for how long? This is not my main emergency power plan, but it is nice to have the option in an emergency.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Unfortunately, my car does not allow that. I would have to sit in it to use its battery that way.

 

[commod0re]

I don't have an EV so I haven't actually done this but V2H/V2L are pretty cool. What you can power and for how long depends mainly on both the size of the battery pack in your EV and how much current the stuff you would have running off of it draws over time, but also some other details as well. Depending on your exact power demands and the size of your EV battery it could potentially power the whole thing and more for multiple days

 

[Subsea]

I recently purchased an EV and found that I have a the ability to plug a household appliance into the car using a vehicle to load adaptor. Naturally, I thought this would be useful for my reef during a power outage. Have you used your EV to power anything on your reef before? What did you power and for how long? This is not my main emergency power plan, but it is nice to have the option in an emergency.

@vlangel
Has a power adapter she runs from car battery. It required car to run to maintain all circuits on reef tank including heater when a snowstorm knocked off power for a week.

 

[Arkayology]

@vlangel
Has a power adapter she runs from car battery. It required car to run to maintain all circuits on reef tank including heater when a snowstorm knocked off power for a week.

And it ran the tank for a week?

 

[Arkayology]

Unfortunately, my car does not allow that. I would have to sit in it to use its battery that way.

Apparently, my I5 has a utility mode that will let me run things off the batteries without needing to be on.

 

[Subsea]

And it ran the tank for a week?

It ran more than the tank. However, it’s a little vague as it was > 10 years ago.

Dawn,
Am I remembering this correctly?

@vlangel
Has a power adapter she runs from car battery. It required car to run to maintain all circuits on reef tank including heater when a snowstorm knocked off power for a week.

 

[Reef Jedi]

I’ve been using a Honda 2000w generator and as a back up to that I have a Honda 3000 that has a much longer run time.

I recently just picked up a new Ford F150 powerboost with the 7.2kw system. I plan on replacing my Honda 3000 with this truck for my RV when we go off grid. Truck has 4 120v plugs and a 50a service. I think the next time the power goes out I’ll use the truck to run everything and see how it goes. From my research, it’s much quieter and just as efficient as the Honda 3000.

 

[DmitryB]

Considering the size of a car battery, it can run for a week at least I'd say. But also depends on what you're running on it. In an emergency situation you don't have to run the entire system. The most important parts are the return pump and the heater in winter and a small fan in summer. Those two things alone could probably run for a looooooong time.

 

[Subsea]

Apparently, my I5 has a utility mode that will let me run things off the batteries without needing to be on.

That option is especially good for charging up your phone when power is lost.

My uninterrupted power supply is used for life support only. With two batteries maintained by 12VDC supply I run two refugium pumps for 75G & 120G displays and one 12VDC air pump continuously. No switching devices to fail. At present, the system will run on survival mode for 2 days with no one home.

 

[vlangel]

It ran more than the tank. However, it’s a little vague as it was > 10 years ago.

Dawn,
Am I remembering this correctly?

@vlangel
Has a power adapter she runs from car battery. It required car to run to maintain all circuits on reef tank including heater when a snowstorm knocked off power for a week.

You are remembering correctly Patrick. I have a 1000 watt power inverter that uses alligator clips (like jumper cables) clipped to the terminals of our car battery. The inverter has 2 outlets for extension cords that we run into our house through windows. I could power the return pump and heater plus our fridge and computer while the car idled in the driveway. The power outage lasted over 4 days and the aquarium did just fine with no consequences to the car by having it idle so long. I am told that a charged deep cycle boat battery can be used for a time period until the battery discharges. This worked so well for our family that we bought a second larger power inverter at Tractor Supply. They are relatively small (compared to a generator) and require no maintenance whatsoever when not using, unlike generators. They are also reasonably priced.

 

[exnisstech]

I may be wrong because my EV experience is limited to single brand that did not have this feature of being used as a backup power source. I would look into it deeper to see how much battery power will be allowed to be used from the EV as a backup. With the tech that EVs have I can't imagine the vehicle will allow draining the battery when used as a backup power source so I would see how much power it can supply from a single charge and then you can calculate what you can run and for how long. If I'm wrong and it will allow the battery to be drained you'll need to be careful or you'll end up stranded untill power comes back on.
Some gas or diesel vehicles will power 110v for as long as the vehicle has fuel. I think some are referring to those vehicles in the discussion not just EV.

 

[commod0re]

I may be wrong because my EV experience is limited to single brand that did not have this feature of being used as a backup power source. I would look into it deeper to see how much battery power will be allowed to be used from the EV as a backup. With the tech that EVs have I can't imagine the vehicle will allow draining the battery when used as a backup power source so I would see how much power it can supply from a single charge and then you can calculate what you can run and for how long. If I'm wrong and it will allow the battery to be drained you'll need to be careful or you'll end up stranded untill power comes back on.
Some gas or diesel vehicles will power 110v for as long as the vehicle has fuel. I think some are referring to those vehicles in the discussion not just EV.

Usually they allow you to use the battery down to around 20% so that could be 60-80% of the total pack capacity depending on whether you typically charge to 80% or 100%

 

[BryanM]

Thats pretty nifty if people have that option.

 

[exnisstech]

You are remembering correctly Patrick. I have a 1000 watt power inverter that uses alligator clips (like jumper cables) clipped to the terminals of our car battery. The inverter has 2 outlets for extension cords that we run into our house through windows. I could power the return pump and heater plus our fridge and computer while the car idled in the driveway. The power outage lasted over 4 days and the aquarium did just fine with no consequences to the car by having it idle so long. I am told that a charged deep cycle boat battery can be used for a time period until the battery discharges. This worked so well for our family that we bought a second larger power inverter at Tractor Supply. They are relatively small (compared to a generator) and require no maintenance whatsoever when not using, unlike generators. They are also reasonably priced.

I have one very similar. I've used it to power heaters and air pumps for livestock being transfered after visiting out of state. It also worked well powering laptops for the kids when traveling but that was before pocket computers were a thing.

 

[areefer01]

I recently purchased an EV and found that I have a the ability to plug a household appliance into the car using a vehicle to load adaptor. Naturally, I thought this would be useful for my reef during a power outage. Have you used your EV to power anything on your reef before? What did you power and for how long? This is not my main emergency power plan, but it is nice to have the option in an emergency.

I'm not sure what EV or the technology you are talking about but some US trucks have outlets in the bed for limited power tool use or air compression. My truck as a 400 watt port for example others higher.

A lot of this is up in the air due to the various EV manufactures and technology they use. Take the since discontinued Ford F-150 lighting. This supported bidirectional charging. Simply put you charge to drive it but could also use its batteries for home use. In the event of an emergency, or use during peak hours, you use the trucks battery to run the home. There are a couple of other manufactures that have showcased this.

Why this is interesting to home owners with a positive solar production is the use of their vehicle storage during peak hours. Lessen the electricity bill by working around solar production and hourly rates. Another way to look at it is that the Ford F-150 Lightning is equal to 7 to 10 Tesla Power walls (98 kWh - 131 kWh). That is a lot of storage on that truck and this is just one example.

Of course with this comes the home owner, hobbyist, setting up the environment to support this and seamless integration. It is not something as simple as running an extension cord.

 

[Arkayology]

Usually they allow you to use the battery down to around 20% so that could be 60-80% of the total pack capacity depending on whether you typically charge to 80% or 100%

This is what the manual says for my car - 20% is the floor.

 

[commod0re]

I'm not sure what EV or the technology you are talking about but some US trucks have outlets in the bed for limited power tool use or air compression. My truck as a 400 watt port for example others higher.

This is what V2L is: “Vehicle-to-Load”

Some EVs have a similar thing called “V2H” (Vehicle to Home) where if you have a bidirectional charger you can then power your whole home off the EV battery just by having it connected to the charger