V2H possible with other equipment?

[Elctrnone]

Sweet! Please post details when you have them! The next question is whether it will work with my existing solar setup and backup battery.

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[Mr. T]

Sweet! Please post details when you have them! The next question is whether it will work with my existing solar setup and backup battery.

Sure, here’s a link to a Enphase’s PDF on the system- https://enphase.com/download/bidirectional-ev-charger-white-paper

 

[DanielB]

There is a working theory that one could connect a 12v battery to the "dark start" terminals on the Ford Charge Station Pro, and when power is lost it would close contactors to the DC charger. I'd love someone who has one to test this theory as the FCSP would be extremely interesting to me if it works that way. Not so much if it doesn't work this way.

https://www.f150lightningforum.com/...-csp-and-his-to-discharge-to-a-dc-load.16342/

 

[WonderFlea]

They are researching to see if anything can be done. Unfortunately my 2nd generation powerwall will not even accept a generator input, so I may be stuck paying the big bucks to use the Ford charge station if I want the additional backup power. I don’t often lose power where I am, but my electricity provider has a weird peak power policy where I wind up going off grid for a few hours per day, several times per month to avoid paying 34 DOLLARS per kilowatt hour during that peak. When the air conditioner is running along with the pool pump, I can go through one powerwall of storage rather quickly.

I have to say that is quite a drain on the power wall. How long is your peak time per day? Here it is 5-9pm and my power wall prioritizes that time. Solar actually pushes to the grid for primo return on power production. My pool pump is usually turning off then or at least the variable speed is much lower than the other times of the day. We have 2-3 window ACs and 1 split ac. Even with cooking dinner in the oven we still have a good 40-60% battery on PW by 9pm.
There’s a setting in the Tesla app to say that you’re on a “time of use” plan with your electricity overlords. That will change when the PW charges and drains.

 

[Elctrnone]

Their peak power only happens for one hour out of each month. They make you pay an extra $15/month to send you emails telling you when it might be. The time is given as windows.

I have had months where I received more than 15 emails like this. As long as there isn’t snow covering my panels and the times are between sunrise and sunset, and I am not charging my car, I’m fine. I even occasionally make money selling them power. But I work on call, so my schedule changes every day, and I have a 170-mile round trip to work, so I can’t just set a time to charge. The peak power charge is only for that one hour out of each month, but the rate is so astronomical that I need to make sure I’m not pulling any grid power when it takes place.

 

[v2h8484]

Wouldn't be simpler to just tell the Powerwall to disconnect from the grid for the hour or so when necessary?

 

[WonderFlea]

Their peak power only happens for one hour out of each month. They make you pay an extra $15/month to send you emails telling you when it might be. The time is given as windows.

I have had months where I received more than 15 emails like this. As long as there isn’t snow covering my panels and the times are between sunrise and sunset, and I am not charging my car, I’m fine. I even occasionally make money selling them power. But I work on call, so my schedule changes every day, and I have a 170-mile round trip to work, so I can’t just set a time to charge. The peak power charge is only for that one hour out of each month, but the rate is so astronomical that I need to make sure I’m not pulling any grid power when it takes place.

wow... I just mean wow.
That's like trying to orchestrate custody/visitation with a crazy ex.
This is approved through the public utility commission?

 

[Elctrnone]

It’s a co-op, so they avoid many of the public utility regulations.

 

[TheWoo]

It’s a co-op, so they avoid many of the public utility regulations.

What is the explanation? I just can't figure a justification for this...

 

[Elctrnone]

This rate plan only applies to their customers who switch to renewable energy sources, so I believe it is used as a way to generate revenue and discourage other customers from adding solar or wind power to their homes. They also increased my monthly connection fee, so I begin each month owing $50 plus taxes and fees. Now my utility provider can point out to their other customers how unlikely it is that their cost to install solar/wind will pay for itself or reduce their monthly bill by an amount that would be worthwhile. My state’s net metering laws only apply to public utilities, so my co-op can do what they want.

 

[invertedspear]

so I may be stuck paying the big bucks to use the Ford charge station if I want the additional backup power.

I have yet to see anyone truly happy with the Ford's HIS. I think one member on this forum is mid about it, but I have yet to hear anyone actually say this system works without hitches. If you're going to spend the money, spend it figuring out another way to use the PPOB to charge your batteries.

 

[123XYZ]

They are researching to see if anything can be done. Unfortunately my 2nd generation powerwall will not even accept a generator input, so I may be stuck paying the big bucks to use the Ford charge station if I want the additional backup power. I don’t often lose power where I am, but my electricity provider has a weird peak power policy where I wind up going off grid for a few hours per day, several times per month to avoid paying 34 DOLLARS per kilowatt hour during that peak. When the air conditioner is running along with the pool pump, I can go through one powerwall of storage rather quickly.

It's probably too late to be any help to you, but for others like me reading this thread much later, if your truck has the 9.6kW Pro Power On Board, which I believe comes standard on some higher trim models, you can get most of the home backup capability at a vastly lower price.

For any home backup setup you need a transfer switch and a panel containing all the circuits you want to back up while staying within the capacity of your backup system. If you're using a Powerwall for home backup, you should already have both of these.

You also need a backup source of AC power. Your current source is your Powerwall (and possibly also solar panels). To use Pro Power On Board as your AC power source you need to plug a cord that would otherwise connect to a portable generator into the 7.2 kW 240V outlet in the bed of the truck that is added to the standard 2.4 kW 120V receptacles present in the base model truck. This cord would go to a transfer switch that would connect to the panel with the loads being backed up. You would then have 7.2kW of backup power provided by a MUCH larger battery than the one in the Powerwall at a cost probably less than$1000.

But there are caveats, warnings, and disadvantages.

You shouldn't try any of this without help from a competent electrician.

Using Pro Power On Board won't give you a backup that functions automatically like the Powerwall or the fabulously expensive Ford/Sunrun home backup system. You need to turn on the truck to activate Pro Power On Board and Ford goes out of its way to make it hard to keep Pro Power on Board working while the truck is not being driven because apparently somebody at Ford decided it has to be inconvenient to use it at the times you're likely to want it.

In the truck, the ground is the chassis which is not grounded to the earth. For reasons I haven't tried to figure out if you connect the truck's (fake) ground to your home's real live ground system that is actually connected to something embedded in the earth you'll get a ground circuit interrupter error in the truck so the ground conductor in the cord connecting the truck to the transfer switch should not be connected at both ends of the cord. This should be the same as powering a home from a portable generator, which also would be connected to its own grounding electrode and should be safe, but I have no idea whether the code allows such a connection. if not, but an electrician confirmed it was safe, I'd ask him to set it up for a 7.2 kW home generator with ground connection and then disconnect the ground wire when connecting the generator cord to the truck, but you may be more cautious than me.

You and your electrician should absolutely not simply connect both the Powerwall and the 7.2kW Pro Power On Board output directly l to the backup panel or a single transfer switch because there would be no system to keep the power provided by these sources in phase and connecting two AC sources that are not in phase would in the best-case scenario trip breakers and not work. The worst-case scenario of is probably prevented by normal breakers, but please don't test this without an electrician first confirming this is true. For the same reason, the 2.4kW and 7.2kW outputs in the truck should never be connected.

If you want to use both to provide a higher maximum output, you, have to set things up to ensure the two systems' outputs are kept in phase. My understanding is that Powerwall is set up to be able to provide power to supplement grid power or export power to the grid. That means it can take a connection to grid power on its input side and use that to keep its output in phase with grid power. This SHOULD mean that if power from the truck is connected through a first transfer switch to the grid side of the Powerwall, the Powerwall SHOULD use that source of power to synchronize its output with that of the truck's Pro Power On Board system and both could then be connected to a second transfer switch, which would be connected on its output side to your backup panel. You'd need to confirm that with your electrician.

Despite all the caveats, I'm fairly certain this CAN be done safely. But you'd need to find an electrician who agrees and was certain enough that he had no concerns about potential liability that he was willing to set it up. Whether or not code allows it is a entirely separate question and whether an electrical engineer could get it permitted despite variance with code requirements by signing it off is something I have no clue about. I. A commercial setting I bet an engineer could do that. In a residential setting, I seriously doubt it.

 

[Elctrnone]

It's probably too late to be any help to you, but for others like me reading this thread much later, if your truck has the 9.6kW Pro Power On Board, which I believe comes standard on some higher trim models, you can get most of the home backup capability at a vastly lower price.

For any home backup setup you need a transfer switch and a panel containing all the circuits you want to back up while staying within the capacity of your backup system. If you're using a Powerwall for home backup, you should already have both of these.

You also need a backup source of AC power. Your current source is your Powerwall (and possibly also solar panels). To use Pro Power On Board as your AC power source you need to plug a cord that would otherwise connect to a portable generator into the 7.2 kW 240V outlet in the bed of the truck that is added to the standard 2.4 kW 120V receptacles present in the base model truck. This cord would go to a transfer switch that would connect to the panel with the loads being backed up. You would then have 7.2kW of backup power provided by a MUCH larger battery than the one in the Powerwall at a cost probably less than$1000.

But there are caveats, warnings, and disadvantages.

You shouldn't try any of this without help from a competent electrician.

Using Pro Power On Board won't give you a backup that functions automatically like the Powerwall or the fabulously expensive Ford/Sunrun home backup system. You need to turn on the truck to activate Pro Power On Board and Ford goes out of its way to make it hard to keep Pro Power on Board working while the truck is not being driven because apparently somebody at Ford decided it has to be inconvenient to use it at the times you're likely to want it.

In the truck, the ground is the chassis which is not grounded to the earth. For reasons I haven't tried to figure out if you connect the truck's (fake) ground to your home's real live ground system that is actually connected to something embedded in the earth you'll get a ground circuit interrupter error in the truck so the ground conductor in the cord connecting the truck to the transfer switch should not be connected at both ends of the cord. This should be the same as powering a home from a portable generator, which also would be connected to its own grounding electrode and should be safe, but I have no idea whether the code allows such a connection. if not, but an electrician confirmed it was safe, I'd ask him to set it up for a 7.2 kW home generator with ground connection and then disconnect the ground wire when connecting the generator cord to the truck, but you may be more cautious than me.

You and your electrician should absolutely not simply connect both the Powerwall and the 7.2kW Pro Power On Board output directly l to the backup panel or a single transfer switch because there would be no system to keep the power provided by these sources in phase and connecting two AC sources that are not in phase would in the best-case scenario trip breakers and not work. The worst-case scenario of is probably prevented by normal breakers, but please don't test this without an electrician first confirming this is true. For the same reason, the 2.4kW and 7.2kW outputs in the truck should never be connected.

If you want to use both to provide a higher maximum output, you, have to set things up to ensure the two systems' outputs are kept in phase. My understanding is that Powerwall is set up to be able to provide power to supplement grid power or export power to the grid. That means it can take a connection to grid power on its input side and use that to keep its output in phase with grid power. This SHOULD mean that if power from the truck is connected through a first transfer switch to the grid side of the Powerwall, the Powerwall SHOULD use that source of power to synchronize its output with that of the truck's Pro Power On Board system and both could then be connected to a second transfer switch, which would be connected on its output side to your backup panel. You'd need to confirm that with your electrician.

Despite all the caveats, I'm fairly certain this CAN be done safely. But you'd need to find an electrician who agrees and was certain enough that he had no concerns about potential liability that he was willing to set it up. Whether or not code allows it is a entirely separate question and whether an electrical engineer could get it permitted despite variance with code requirements by signing it off is something I have no clue about. I. A commercial setting I bet an engineer could do that. In a residential setting, I seriously doubt it.

Thanks for posting this. It definitely doesn’t sound like a project for the faint of heart! I do have an electrician I will have to contact and see whether he would be intrigued enough to turn mad scientist, and convince the county inspector this would be safe!

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