Amid continued power outages in parts of the Northeast, many residents found temporary refuge from cold and dark homes inside their cars. For one New Jersey man, he used the power from his hybrid car to light up his entire house. Bob Sakala of Paramus says he bought his Toyota Prius Hybrid in June to save gas. In the week since the storm, he powered his home -- including lights, laptops and a television -- on three quarters of a tank of gas. Sakala says he first read about the Prius' use as a power source years ago on the internet. After the storm, and the resulting power outage, he thought he'd give it a try. He ended up powering a few lights, his TV, laptop and modem with a 100 watt power inverter and a few heavy-duty extension cords he purchased at Home Depot. He later moved to a 300 watt inverter, which let him power more lights. "The neighbors kept saying, 'Does Bob have a generator?' No, it's the Prius. It's a spaceship," he said. Although he couldn't plug in a heater to the car, Sakala said he was happy to keep the lights on, something hundreds of thousands of customer are without in New York and New Jersey. At the storm's peak, more than 8.5 million homes and businesses across 21 states lost power. As of Thursday, that was down to about 750,000, almost entirely in New York and New Jersey. Thursday's nor'easter overnight knocked out power to more than 200,000 customers in New York and New Jersey, erasing some of the progress made by utility crews. Power was restored to Sakala's block Thursday evening. Article & Video on Link: During blackout, man uses Toyota Prius to light house - U.S. News
That is OK, I've added my comments too. Whether it does any good or not . . . horse, water, drink. Bob Wilson
How did he do it? I'd like to be prepared for the next storm (I was out 7 days). Clip inverter to 12 volt battery posts and pass the extension cord out a partly opened window? Is there a better way? I don't want my Prius stolen when left outside running, and I don't want it running in the garage>
The kicker for me is the fact that he only use 3/4 of a tank of gas for the entire week. But this is only for supplying 100W-300W of power. I've got a 5kw Coleman generator that will keep my fridge and many home gadgets going. For us, powering a remote A/C during the summertime is a very powerful and lifesaving tool.
Just some thoughts to share: Clips - not so good because they make a poor contact which runs hot and wastes power. It is better even in a temporary installation, to have a wrench and bolt the 12 V cables to the battery terminals. Just remove the ground wire; bolt on the B+ cable; bolt on the ground terminal; connect the ground cable back to the vehicle ground, and; start the car. Stolen Prius - with lights off and the garage door cracked 6-8 inches, no problem. Running the extension cable out the cracked driver's window also defers a thief. Don't forget if they drive off, you'll soon know as the house goes dark. Running in the garage - the catalytic converter makes a 100 fold reduction in the carbon monoxide levels. The engine cycles ON/OFF to sustain the traction battery. This configuration will work for the larger 1 kW inverters. The 'clip on' ones should probably be no more than 400 W (400 W / 12 V ~= 33 A.) Even at these currents, they are going to get hot enough to burn fingers. Bob Wilson
Thanks Bob, that takes care of the Prius side of the electricity. One last Prius question - is it a good idea to attach a hose to the exhaust to take the exhaust out of the garage? My garage is not well sealed from the house, and the boiler pulls air (I'm guessing) significantly from the garage into the house when it is on. I do have a battery powered CO detector, but I like multiple levels of defense. Now I need to figure out how much power the steam boiler pulls for the control electronics (no pumps or fans). One wouldn't think much, but it is on its own 15 amp circuit, hard wired with no plugs (my guess is that such is code for furnace wiring here).
yes, you absolutely want a hose. make sure it seals well to the exhaust pipe. the boiler controls take very little juice and yes it is code to be on it's own circuit.
Funny you should ask... Our power came back after being out for five days from Sandy, but I don't trust LIPA, so early this past week I isolated my steam boiler with a transfer switch to remove it from the house feed. It has electronic ignition and an electric chimney damper, which has to be in the open position before the gas will fire. Come Wednesday, our power went out again even before the nor'easter moved in, and it's still out as of Saturday night. So I hooked up an 80 watt plug-in inverter to my Prius c and stuck a Kill A Watt on it. With the heat off the power draw is only 5 watts, presumably for the control electronics and the thermostat. When the heat is on the draw is initially about 20 watts as the damper opens, then it drops back to about 18 watts when the gas lights up. As long as I had power to spare I put a power strip on the feed and plugged some other stuff in. I'm running two 13 watt LED lamps (60 watt incandescent equivalent), my cable modem, wifi router, VOIP phone interface, two wireless phones, and iPhone charger, and I'm still pulling less than 50 watts. If I turn off one of the lights I can charge my laptop. We have gas for hot water and cooking, so we're managing to keep fairly cozy now. The only thing missing is refrigeration, but we have two coolers full of ice sitting on the back stoop, and the ice is still mostly there after nine days. I have no idea when the power will come back on, but the Prius is burning less than half a gallon a day and I filled it up on Friday. It's interesting to note that I have an electronics-intensive household which normally draws close to a kilowatt most of the time!
I used a 1500W inverter while the power was out and it worked great. I'm also thinking of picking something like a solar generator to add. It can be kept in the house and can also be used all year.
Follow-up to my earlier post; our power came back tonight, and when I turned off the Prius it reported having been Ready for 54 hours, about 0.5 gallons of gas used. I was drawing only about 40 watts average for that period, but I'm very pleased with how it worked - it meant we had heat, light, phone, and internet access while the electricity was off.
