Ford Intelligent Back Up

[earlyadopt]

Anyone successfully install the battery backup system offered by the Ford Intellegent backup? I have a new Lightning and thinking about using it as a back up along with my solar panels.

I am in Canada so that may cause an addition wrinkle.

Thanks

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[idahospud]

Hi, I can't give any feedback as to how the system will work in Canada, but I have had the HIS system for over 19 months, and although there were early bugs, it now seems to be working consistently as designed. I have no regrets.

 

[BeeKind]

I'm personally having solar installed in the near future but I'm having a generator transfer switch put in for now. Ultimately the solar ecosystem I'm buying into (Enphase) is developing its own bidirectional charging system and I anticipate that being a bit more OEM-agnostic and I also have more faith in Enphase to pull it off competently.

For me the entire Ford rollout seems like people meeting in board rooms coming up with good ideas on paper in theory and then when this big company and that big company all got together they checked boxes and out shipped the product. Rushed, maybe? Not faith inspiring.

GM's rollout appears better managed from an user experience standpoint but is ultimately disappointing from a "you're going to give me a 200kWh pack and only 80 amps output?"

I think the simplest plan unless you have lots of money and overwhelming desire to be an early adopter is to integrate a generator transfer switch to come off the 32A circuit on the tail. At that point just make sure you can run what you need when power is out. IE, if you're in TX make sure you have a window AC of say 5,000 BTUs alongside your fridge and a few other items. Keeps a room or two cool and your groceries.

It's also important to understand the term "backup" - which you're using, so you may know this but this is not a V2x situation in what most people envision it as. V2H/V2L/V2G applications have specific implications, ie, local utility can have programs to use your battery and pay you for that, you can charge your car via solar at day and run the house off it by night, that kind of stuff. This is only a backup solution.

Essentially it turns your truck into a natural-gas fired Generac but instead of that you have a huge battery pack. That is also limited to 10kW, NOT the implied 19.2kW you would expect since the truck chargest at 19.2kW.

The Enphase charger I'm waiting for should enable all those V2x features. So this is one of those "YMMV" kind of things - jump in now to either be super early adopter for backup power, and yes, it works for that, with caveats, or wait a year or two as "better" options emerge.

Most of the things we're throwing around are going to be 5-figures when install is complete. There's a lot of pieces.

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