F-150 Lightning powering house after tornado power outage

[Newton]

The truck is a bonded neutral generator (which must have a GFCI) also known as a separately derived power system. Many home generators are floating neutral, especially the cheaper ones. This kind of stuff is a big issue in the marine world since when on shore power you want to be unbonded (in the USA) but bonded when using a generator or inverter. If you get it wrong you can at least melt your prop or at worst electrocute a swimmer, so I'm cautious about it on land.

The easy and correct solution is to install a subpanel that switches the neutral so it is bonded to the house ground normally and bonded to the truck when in generator mode. I used the Generac Homelink, it is not super expensive nor difficult to install and has the virtue of having lights on the panel that tell you if utility power comes back on. You do have to select which circuits are backed up.

The problem for me is that you have two incompatible electrical designs that use the same plug, NEC should have required bonded systems to use a different plug than unbonded ones. Instead we have to have this wordy little plaque on the inlet telling what type of generator that you are allowed to connect.

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[Henry Ford]

You are not defeating your breaker panels ability to protect the house from faults. A new ground fault will still trip the breaker in your panel. That ground fault still has a path to the source, and therefore still will trip the overload, GFCI, or AFCI functions of your circuit breaker panel. By lifting the ground on the cable to the truck, you are just eliminating the incompatible and improper dual paths for neutral current to flow back to the truck. Fault current in the house is bonded to the neutral in your panel like it always is, and flows back to the source (the truck) on the neutral just like it does going out your meter to the pole. In fact it is highly likely a fault in the house will trip the circuit breaker in your panel and also trip the overload protection no the truck at the same time.

If your house doesn't have GFCI breakers, a ground fault will not necessarily trip a breaker. A standard circuit breaker is designed to prevent overload so you don't burn your house down, not ground fault protection. In my experience the human body has enough resistance as to not overload a typical residential circuit breaker.

If you lift the ground of your truck you lose the ground fault protection it provides. Under normal circumstances that leaves you with the same level of protection you had on grid power. If you are using your truck to power your house it isn't a normal circumstance. My 2¢

 

[frost22]

I got a 2kw camping battery for my sump backup. It can work for about 5-6 hours. Then I'd charge it back up with the Lightning. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09N7744M8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

 

[IdeaOfTheDayCom]

2. I know it is a common complaint, but it bothers me a ton that the truck must be "On and ready to drive" in order to use ProPower. Seeing the screens on is just annoying.

This has always seemed like a bad idea too. I think there should be a ProPower Mode that doesn't involve making the truck available for driving.

I'm sure this has something to do with the way they designed the ICE version, where the truck clearly needed to be running for the generator to work. With an all electric vehicle, there should simply be a way to turn the outlets on, just in case somebody like a child accidentally throws it in Drive.

 

[TaxmanHog]

This has always seemed like a bad idea too. I think there should be a ProPower Mode that doesn't involve making the truck available for driving.

I'm sure this has something to do with the way they designed the ICE version, where the truck clearly needed to be running for the generator to work. With an all electric vehicle, there should simply be a way to turn the outlets on, just in case somebody like a child accidentally throws it in Drive.

When they release the next major update, I think we will have this type of functionality.

 

[Pioneer74]

When they release the next major update, I think we will have this type of functionality.

Soon?

 

[Newton]

I got a 2kw camping battery for my sump backup. It can work for about 5-6 hours. Then I'd charge it back up with the Lightning. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09N7744M8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

That is a really good idea. I think an ideal solution is to have a decent sized house backup battery that is recharged from the grid, solar, truck, or generator. The hardware for this is already available in the marine world and not too expensive as far as those things go. If your battery were large enough, you could even use it to put some miles back into the truck especially if you have solar. You could possibly even handle surge load issues with something like this, since there are marine inverter/chargers that will supplement shore power with the battery if the voltage drops - the same concept could be used to have the truck supplement the house battery in that case.

Smart systems like this might become more necessary as the grid struggles to adapt to climate change.

Some of the solutions that the carmakers have come up with are overly expensive and complicated. The GM system is only about 9kW and takes a minute to switch over. Marine systems switch over fast enough that desktop computers don't notice the power interruption.

 

[GDN]

When they release the next major update, I think we will have this type of functionality.

You speak bodly. Will that be before or after BC 1.4? Or all together?

 

[luebri]

You speak bodly. Will that be before or after BC 1.4? Or all together?

If it's not by 8am tomorrow, we will never trust a word he says ever again! The precedent has been set!

 

[frost22]

That is a really good idea. I think an ideal solution is to have a decent sized house backup battery that is recharged from the grid, solar, truck, or generator. The hardware for this is already available in the marine world and not too expensive as far as those things go. If your battery were large enough, you could even use it to put some miles back into the truck especially if you have solar. You could possibly even handle surge load issues with something like this, since there are marine inverter/chargers that will supplement shore power with the battery if the voltage drops - the same concept could be used to have the truck supplement the house battery in that case.

Smart systems like this might become more necessary as the grid struggles to adapt to climate change.

Some of the solutions that the carmakers have come up with are overly expensive and complicated. The GM system is only about 9kW and takes a minute to switch over. Marine systems switch over fast enough that desktop computers don't notice the power interruption.

That's my long term goal. But the 2kw and truck with long extension cords works for now. I don't mind, the solar panel and battery tech gets better and cheaper. Having $0 power bill would be my goal though.

 

[invertedspear]

You speak bodly. Will that be before or after BC 1.4? Or all together?

IIRC the option is available in the Flash trim, so it's probably available for all 2024 models. Unlike BC 1.4, the ProPower when off has been coded and deployed to at least new models. We're waiting on Ford to fix their OTA game, I'd bet on us having PPOB-when-off long before BC 1.4

 

[TaxmanHog]

You speak bodly. Will that be before or after BC 1.4? Or all together?

If it's not by 8am tomorrow, we will never trust a word he says ever again! The precedent has been set!

IIRC the option is available in the Flash trim, so it's probably available for all 2024 models. Unlike BC 1.4, the ProPower when off has been coded and deployed to at least new models. We're waiting on Ford to fix their OTA game, I'd bet on us having PPOB-when-off long before BC 1.4

No insider communications about this, just my wishful thinking.

 

[intensifi]

You want one of these. It handles the neutral bonding issue as well. Works for a standalone generator or the 30A Outlet in the bed.

These have to be provided or authorized by the utility company. Mine was installed at no cost by PG&E here in Nor Cal.

If you add solar panels you can create a configuration to charge the truck during the day. This is an advanced topic though.

 

[Joe Dablock]

This is a success story detailing the first time using the Lightning to help though a power outage.

I live in the middle of Iowa and my area got hit with significant tornado damage last week (Tornado Damage).

Due to the proximity of the tornado, we were without power for almost 5 days. I knew we had some storms coming in, so figured I'd charge up to 90% just in case. I plugged the 10-30R outlet into our generator input of the house (ground disconnected), and let ProPower do it's thing. Ended up using about 18% of the battery each day (Ending up with 8% battery remaining at the end of the ordeal). We didn't change any of our normal routines throughout the outage (Excluding laundry), even using the GeoThermal AC for a few hours. The AC was able to run due to having this device installed on the compressor (MicroAir Easy Start).

A couple of take-aways from my point of view:

1. It really sucks not being able to drive the truck while it is powering the house. It seems obvious, but something to consider if you have critical loads (Sump Pump) that can't go without power for a period of time.

2. I know it is a common complaint, but it bothers me a ton that the truck must be "On and ready to drive" in order to use ProPower. Seeing the screens on is just annoying.

3. We are in a rural location without access to close DC chargers. Our other EV (MachE) came home almost dead after the first day with no way to charge. Luckily we have another non-ev that we could use for this situation, but really eye opening for me when I aspire to drop all of our ICE vehicles.

4. The capacity of the truck when charged to 90% is more than large enough. We had an accurate timeline of when we expected the power to be back on....If we needed to, we could have been conservative on our consumption and easily made it more than a week just powering critical loads (Well, Sump, Fridges).

5. If you plan on using the truck for an outage, make sure you test your setup before hand. About 10 minutes after the tornado went though and we were all clear, I was greeted with the sump alarm indicating that it was filling up and had just a few more minutes before things started to flood (Storm was proceeded by a ton of rain for our area). Luckily I had tested everything out before the event, so it wasn't an issue. If this was my first time going though it, it might have taken me a bit longer to get things setup. (I'll be installing a backup sump in anyway to prevent this in the future).

Wow, this story is identical to my story, I even have a white E Mustang and Blue/Black Lightning. The only difference is, my first power outage was only for about 6 hours. I also questioned why I had to have the truck fully on and also had to disconnect the ground to get the truck to prevent the GFI in truck from tripping. My neighbor spent $20K on a automatic generator system. I spent an extra $1k for the generator plug when the Class 2 charger was installed. Yes I have to manually engage the system but $19K is still in my pocket.

 

[rraustad]

Milton passed over us a week ago. About 11:30 PM on Wed the utility power went out. I turned off the main and WH breakers, plugged in the gen cord to Pro Power and gen receptacle, turned on truck, and off we went to power the house. At about 9:30 AM the next morning the Pro Power tripped out with a message to get Ford service. Oh No! I turn off truck, restarted and Pro Power started exporting again but tripped out about 5 min later. I tried this reset strategy about 4 times. I thought I was out of luck and something had failed. Then I thought to myself that I had a solar system and it was useless when the grid was down. I then realized I had forgot to turn off the solar because when the sun came up that next morning and solar production exceeded what the house was using the excess solar production was sent back to the truck (backfeeding the inverter and tripping it out). Once I turned off the solar everything went perfectly for the remainder of the outage. About 42 hours, 100% SOC down to 59% with 3 1/2 ton AC set at 77 F. I figure I could have gone about 4 days before needing a fast charger. The best news was that the Pro Power didn't blow up when solar was fed back into the 240 outlet and the truck protected itself. I was wondering about that and now I know the answer, found out the hard way.

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