F-150 Lightning powering house after tornado power outage

[Big guy]

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.

what type of connection to the house do you have? Generac or ?

Sponsored

 

[Dino]

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.

I have a NEMA 14 50 240 plug that is powered by my 7kw solar system. If you had something like that you could charge the truck with your excess solar. I have charged my Lightning at 4kw/16 amp while powering a 240 load off the PPOB 240 generator connector.
It is great to know the truck handled the solar back feed with no damage.

 

[Big guy]

Sorry I may not have been clear. As you know there have been many comments on how people are trying to find the easiest/cost effective way to be able to power our homes in a power failure. I don't have solar or anything exotic. The unit from PGE out west seems to be the simplest answer but we can't get them here in the Midwest. I was wondering what item you were using to plug your lightning 240 cable into to power your house. A general unit? Your description sounded simple. Thx

 

[Dino]

I didn't say house, it was a 240v about 25 amp pool heating unit. I was powering it with the truck temporarily until my electrician hardwired it.

 

[rraustad]

@Big guy I plug into a L14-30 receptacle, less ground, at my garage panel. Bonded ground is at the main house panel. Very simple but could cause the truck to go hot (high voltage) if there was a ground fault somewhere in the house. @Dino, I did get my generator started before I figured out to turn off my solar. So I ran the generator dry of gasoline. While that was running I tested charging the truck off a generator using the Ford Mobile Charger. When I plugged in the truck did start charging but the house turned off. A 6 kW gen that did sound like it was bogging down while charging. When I looked in the truck the message was "you need the truck running to use Pro Power On Board." The truck was running so I figured the truck automatically turned off when I plugged in to charge. It sounds like that is different from what you found.

 

[Dino]

I did not have an issue charging the truck and using PPOB 240v at the same time.

Sponsored