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opiegagnon t1_j1zf0wd wrote

We were without power for about 23 hours, losing power around 6:30 pm. Our powerwall held strong and when the power came back on I had 21% left on my battery. Wednesday before the storm I got a severe weather notification from the app, the powerwall charged itself to 100%, my solar did not generate enough power to refill all of the battery. So the battery pulled what it needed from the grid to get to 100%. All in all the experience was pretty good on my end, we ran the house on a light load and used wood heat not my pellet stove. For reference we ran 2 fridges, a chest freezer, 2 turtle tanks, well/radon pump, lights where needed, and the furnace during the outage. The pellet stove is a low load but, with this being our first outage I played it safe.

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invenio78 t1_j1zmpm4 wrote

How much did the powerwall cost?

I mean a portable generator is under $1k plus a couple of gallons of gasoline when this happens

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opiegagnon t1_j1zpk5e wrote

Right, but I have solar panels as well, so I don't have the battery solely for backup in emergency situations.

Most days when the sun is out I only pull 4-5 kwh from the grid.

I generate power all day , what i don't use goes to the battery and then I sell back to eversource once my battery is fully charged. I use a percentage of my battery every night to offset grid usage. Once the non-emergency battery allocation is used up I go back to pulling from the grid.

I would not have bought a battery just for emergency use, it is about the same cost (~10k) as a whole home auto switch over propane generator.

The battery is great for emergencies, but my main goal when getting it was to offset my nightly grid usage.

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invenio78 t1_j1zpyb7 wrote

No, it makes sense if you have solar as well. Not so much if you are just buying a huge battery for times when the power goes out.

A little off topic, how much energy does your solar generate typically in the winter months? It seems like we don't have a lot of sun and the days are short to begin with.

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opiegagnon t1_j1zs2vy wrote

Ugh, December power generation is really frustrating. We got panels in August and I was generating 30+ KWh a day. Now I am barely getting to 10, on an overcast cloudy day I can sometimes get 0 or maybe 1-2 KWh.

I am not looking forward to Jan and Feb. Next winter I will have built up credits over the summer. And my bill will be better, but this year is not going to save a lot of money.

I like to think I am helping the environment too, but I know it is a drop in the bucket really.

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hdoublearp t1_j20v3m9 wrote

With a well pump, did you need two power walls? I've considered getting just the powerwall without solar just for backup since we're in a tricky spot with lots of tree cover.

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djdirectdrive t1_j21kgd2 wrote

This is good to hear. I want to look into generators and was thinking about going this route.

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Annuate t1_j2axkzn wrote

Were you able to purchase the power wall without the solar shingles? Did you use some company or install it yourself? I've been interested in getting one myself.

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opiegagnon t1_j2b0pjs wrote

We have 22 solar panels and one powerwall, all installed by granite state solar.

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