Prius owner uses car to power home during power outage...

The subject in the story probably used ~750w inverter (I would not go larger) connected directly to the 12v battery powering the fridge and a couple of small items. Power the car on and turn off everything else off (fans lights etc..). The traction battery will keep the 12v battery charged via the dc to dc converter and when the traction battery gets low the engine will start and recharge it. I don't know the power rating of the dc to dc converter but you should be good with ~750W. I'm sure some of the long time owners can give more specifics.

 

That is quite impressive

 

If you want to see how to go ahead and power the whole house, then follow this link to Richard Factor's great site on using the Prius as a back-up power supply. (This is the PriUPS site!)

It is amazing what people have been able to do, whether it is using a small on-board inverter to provide light 120 AC power or convincing a commercial-sized back up system that the Prius' HV battery is the back-up system's lead-acid battery.

 

Your link has two http's.

 

Thanks!! Fixed.

 

This is what I did with my NHW11 Prius using a 1 kW, modified sine wave inverter. Since I still use my NHW11 Prius, I'm not desperate to do the same for my wife's ZVW30. However, I did a preliminary survey and I'm thinking of a slightly different approach:

1) 1.5-2 kw sine wave inverter - more expensive, it should handle inrush currents better than the 1 kW, 1.2 kW surge inverter.
2) some loads won't work with a modified sine wave, many do but others get 'confused' by the noisy power. For example, a 5,000 BTU window airconditioner worked but the replacement unit turned out to be too sensitive and does not. However, the 1 hp. furnace fan worked fine.
3) replace OEM battery with an Odessey deep discharge/high capacity battery to provide the surge current needed.

You have choices and each requires a different level of resources. The 1 kW and below inverters work best for 'camping out at home.' Installation costs can be $100-$500 and no house wiring has to be touched. The more extensive, 3 kW systems also work but you're tapping into another part of the car that is less accessible.

I've seen multiple 12 VDC systems but not many that tap into the traction battery. It is a question of requirements.

Bob Wilson

 

Now how many gallons of gas/day would it take to power the light decoration on the Griswold house in "Christmas Vacation?"

 

Funny you should mention this. I have this idea of a home-made Prius commercial:

Evening shot of a house with snow; Christmas lights in a window; and a tree in the foreground. "Jingle Bells" is playing. A crack is heard; a limb falls; the lights go out; and "Jiingle Bells" runs down.

A woman's voice calls out, "Honey, the power went out and the heater is off!"

A man in a really heavy coat (think Kenny in South Park) comes out the front door with a long extension cord. He closes the door and lays the extension cord to the Prius. He raises the rear hatch and plugs the extension cord into the inverter lowers it and then starts the Prius ... the Christmas lights come on and "Jingle Bells" starts up again.

The woman's voice calls out, "Come back in baby, the heater is on."

The bundled man closes the hatch and hurries back into the house ...

TEXT: "Prius Powers The World."

The music changes to "Silent Night" and the text fades into:

TEXT: "Quiet, clean, efficient and EPA 50 MPG."

​

But it may take a while since Huntsville Alabama only occasionally gets snow.

Bob Wilson

ps. Special ending, the bundled man waves at his next door neighbor who is pulling the cord on his portable generator and says, "How's the VAROOM VAROOM working out?"

 

Do you know if the inverter could be attached under the hood to the jumpstart terminals on my 2008 Prius?

 

Awesome Bob! You really need to show that to Doug Coleman.

 

Does anyone know the maximum power that can be drawn out of the 12 volt battery and still have the Prius maintain the charge on the 12 volt battery? Is a 750 watt inverter the limit? What happens if I hook up a 1500 watt inverter to the 12 volt battery?

 

Very cool. Never thought of this use, but it makes a lot of sense. I've since sent this article to my neighbors who own Tahoe's.

 

A guy that knows ICE's very well, stated that a regular car doing this with the 12v, and turning the car on/off every hour or so.
Basically using the alternator to charge up the 12v (one or more in parallel).

He said on how bad an idea this is, because the car is not moving, the pistons are not getting oiled properly, and one could severely cause wear to the cam heads, thus reducing the life of the ICE.

Makes me wonder how the Prius ICE differs. Using the Prius as an unmoving generator, what happens to the internals getting oiled properly?

 

I'd strongly question how well this guy knows regular ICEs.

First, with a regular 12V battery and the inverter capacity under discussion, "turning the car on/off every hour or so" will leave the battery dead in the very first off cycle.

Second, I've never heard of a car engine where the pistons and cams were lubricated by motion of the wheels or transmission.

 

The article does not specify, but I originally assumed he was powering off the hybrid battery (has a lot of capacity), and not the 12V battery in the Prius used to start the car. If that is the case, where did he tap into the hybrid battery to get 12V used in most inverters. Isn't the hybrid battery something like 300V DC? Did he tap off someplace in the engine, say, at the electric motor?

 

I don't know about this guy but I have done some web research. I think some implementations (not necessarily this guy) is to use some industrial uninterpretable power supply that uses banks of high voltage batteries. Then just get the UPS without the batteries and hook it up to the Prius high voltage batteries.

I think the industrial UPS uses high voltage DC because it is more efficient to convert 200-300 v DC into 110 v AC than to have to step up 12 volts to 110 volts. Don't forget, 110 volt AC is actually the RMS voltage. Peak voltage is really 170 volts or so. So you have 170volt peak, 170 volt valley, = 340 volts. Fits the 300 volt battery nicely - not exactly but much better than 12 volts.

This is what I think anyway.

 

Very good point, and it makes more sense to work with the 300V DC (or whatever it is), than down at 12V DC and convert to 110AC.

I'm just use to seeing converters working at 12V for boats and RV's, etc. But it would make sense that they have them for much higher voltages.

 

When we had a huge ice storm here in southern Quebec in 1998, some people improvised. This example is with a standard car.

One such, using booster cables, wired in parallel some four 12dcv car batteries to his car outside his door, to inside his house.

He then used a 1200w 12dcv To 120vac inverter to power his fridge, a lamp, a small electric kettle (unplugging the fridge).

He thought his solution to be cheap, but apparently "used up" his ICE due to poor motor internal lube because the car was not rolling.

PLUS, it cost him a fortune in gas, and the batteries used up real quick when pulling 1000w. The heat from the heatsink of the (huge!) inverter helped heat up his room.
They were all huddled in the kitchen.

- - - - - - - -
Hybrid + UPS

Different ballgame, if you tap in parallel the 220dcv of the HSD traction battery to the + and - terminals of a compatible computer *server* rackmount/standing UPS.
The UPS needs to accept the operational range of 200 to 240 dcv.

Then you leave the Prius to IG-ON, and as long as you put gas in the car, you can power a hell of a lot more than a mere 1200w. You can easily do 15 amps...thus 120v x 15a = 1800w of continuous draw can be achieved. (though not recommended)

 

There is a cost involved in using the Prius as a generator beyond gasoline.

My rough calculation
Keep in mind that most people drive 2 hours a day or less. 3 days of using your Prius as a generator is 72 hours which is about a month of driving. So by using your Prius as a generator for 3 days, you have cycled the battery through 1 month worth of wear and tear (charge and discharge). The engine and inverter got a workout too.

Naturally, the more juice you use, the more wear and tear. The less juice, the less.