Power Cut Preparations

Go piezo!

I don't recognise that team. Italian I imagine.

Whilst I wouldn’t disagree, there are many ways that you can be better prepared. Whilst I think in the long term there will be solutions found for the grid instability introduced by reliance on renewables, in the short term it pays to be prepared.

I use my home battery to provide power to my internet systems and have a spare socket should I want to plug in my fridge-freezer. Pretty minimal in terms of what is possible these days but the cost/benefit ratio doesn’t really justify having a fancier and *lot* more expensive full house back up.

Once you have home battery storage this opens up the option of charging it up on cheap rate power and then using that power during the day (during non-power cut situations) allowing you to effectively time-shift most of your consumption to the cheap rate period.

Tim

When I recently priced up a package of solar panels, battery, inverter, heat pump, and insulation, and allowing for loss of interest on the expenditure and my current cost of energy, the payback time was 33 years not counting degradation and replacements. It simply wasn’t viable on those grounds.

Another advantage, related to my nearby post "Electricity supply resilience". One of the 30 or so local houses, with so-called property level protection from floods, flood doors and barriers and pumps with sumps. He has a home PV and large battery system and is the only house that will have an operational pump and sump when there is an extreme flood and SSEN premptively cuts the lecky .

Piezo Electric. Generate a spark by squeezing a crystal. I still have a lighter which uses this principle. Also found, for example, in some camping stoves.

Cheers

Dave R

It's fun to have an emergency generator on site, but if you look into the repair, some parts of keeping it running aren't a lot of fun. There is another video that shows how to (carefully) remove the air box without breaking anything, and it requires "hitting something" to loosen it up.

"Generac 22kW 999cc Engine Replacement"

And that's a four stroke, rather than a two stroke engine (separate oil reservoir). It's like buying a small used car.

My neighbour two doors up, has something like that.

People who run stuff like that, further south of my location, are using such things to keep their multiple whole house AC running :-) You can't live there, without air conditioning. You would likely have a genny per central air unit (as part of the redundancy story they run on AC units). That way, if the power goes off and one genny fails, you've still got one genny and one central air to keep half the house cool. And everyone moves into the cool half of the house.

Paul

I would have thought that if you live somewhere that necessitates AC then solar panels would be the logical choice.

Tim

Those people have big houses, and I think some of them do have solar.

But in a place like this, you must have an assured source of power. The power can't go off, or you'll cook.

And it's like living on another planet there. Mercury, maybe.

On the McMansions, quite a few of them have solar on the roof. Whether the solar is actually wired up ? Who knows.

Paul

Its perfectly possible to live there without Aircon if you build the houses correctly. The nights are very chilly.

You need a lot of masonry to absorb daytime heat and a very solid thick roof.

Overhanging eaves to block direct sunlight and blinds as well

Gas central heating here plus a gas fire in the lounge. Fortunately the gas supply very rarely fails. We also have a gas hob but like you we need matches when the electricity fails which is does several times a year usually co-incident with weather related events. So out of summer we can keep one room warm when the electricity fails.

There is a plugged off gas point in the lounge so that is definitely something to consider.

We have gas but that is only for the central heating. If we had an extended power cut it would be out with the pop up gazebo outside the conservatory and fire up the 6 burner BBQ although we do have a small gas camping stove as well. As for light I have couple of LED camping lanterns that I regularly make sure are fully charged, one work light and a couple of torches. The camping lanterns can be used to charge up phones and if push comes to shove I can always use the car for USB charging. For anything involving the internet I can use the mobile as a hotspot for one of the iPads (with fat finger syndrome I hate doing any web surfing on the mobile).

To follow up I have just been advised of a PLANNED outage on Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

I assume: No compensation for planned outages. They found something during the emergency work that need a bigger fix.

Purely in terms of electrical supply availability we seem to be one of the most reliable in Europe:

-- Richard

I've found mine holding up through a (admittedly localised) 8 hour outage,

I have, what is know to motorhomers, as a solar power pack. Odd name as there is nothing solar about it!

In reality, they are a battery / inverter / charger all in one box - size, kWh capacity, etc vary as does the outputs - typically 230VAC, 12VDC, and several USBs.

They can be charged by solar panels - hence the solar name tag- but these are not only extras they would be slow, unless you had a large array for a

I have a BLUETTI but there are other brands.

I have a Honda, converted to run on propane, although it will run on domestic gas, and of course petrol. There are cheaper generators, the Hondas are ( or were when I bought mine) known for being the quietest. You really need an inverter generator to run computers etc.

Does anyone build houses there with one storey underground? Seems to me it would make sense to build an "upside-down" house with the bedrooms and bathroom/s completely below ground (no windows required), and living area on the ground floor. That would have aircon.

Out of interest, why aren't the houses and roofs all white as they probably would be in the Middle East and North Africa?

Too sensible and far too expensive. In Germany you *have* to have a basement. ... My sister built a house like that, Laundry room, spare bedroom and bathroom.

It all flooded wit sewage when the fabulous German engineering failed and the sewers back filled the basements.

Honestly it actually doesn't make a huge amount of difference... In Spain and Italy they are 6 inches of tiles... stick some insulation under that and all is cool enough.