by Daisy Luther, The Organic Prepper:
Editor’s note: By now, just about everyone has heard about the difficulties occurring in South Africa. The violence is palpable, the corruption is an everyday fact, and utilities such as water and electricity are no longer a given. Not only that, but the cost of these utilities has become prohibitive, so conservation is a necessity. Backup power, such as solar or generators, have become a necessity for many families.
In this article, a regular reader from South Africa shares some of the tips for starting out with generators and backup power that have made it easier to deal with the continuous rolling blackouts and outrageous prices for electricity. ~ Daisy
Living in South Africa we have had our share of rolling blackouts nationally. The cause: nefarious activities. The result being us forced to find ways to ensure we are not affected as badly.
The problem is better now, but it has highlighted that it is not just a South African problem, but in actual fact a Western world problem. We all are totally reliant on a massive aging infrastructure that can come tumbling down like a house of cards, with or without help.
Another problem is the cost to keep the national system operational. In some areas, it is not a priority to resolve the regular failures.
For getting started with backup power, remember that NEEDs vs WANTs – a huge price difference.
What is also good to know, when the power goes off, switch off your distribution board, leaving just the light plugs on. When the power comes back on, lights come on, wait a few minutes for the grid to stabilize, before switching things on. We have lost computers, internet modes, freezers/fridges, alarm systems etc, damaged when the grid goes off and back comes on. UPS’es have the best protection for this.
Here are some pertinent notes from my own experience.
Right, now that you have a few notes to consider, here are the rules that we have found important when using backup power like a generator.
Needs are much cheaper than wants, like you WANT to power your entire house during a power failure, or do you just NEED to power very selected devices like a fridge, lights, cell phone chargers?
The higher the load, the longer the runtime, the shorter the batteries will be able to power it.
Choose your loads with wisdom. Do you need it, or want it?
And switch off that which is not used.
Older fridges have a very high start-up current. For them, you need a larger inverter.
Kettles, stove, and heaters, also need a big inverters. They just use a lot of power.
Versus Cell phone chargers, lights, PC’s and laptops, don’t need a large inverter.
So the options is to get a smaller inverter with a larger battery bank to power loads for longer than a larger inverter with a large battery bank and have a shorter time to run things, and not a large inverter and a large bank with the limited runtime.
The question you need to answer: What do you NEED?
The most common problem with batteries is that we are not aware that batteries are not a limitless source of power. IT is a chemical reaction that must be used within the manufacturers design specification.
Lead Acid batteries, although they say like 200ah, or 100ah, in real life, only has half the capacity available, if you want to use it for a long time.
What is not common knowledge are the “cycles” at a certain Depth of Discharge (DoD) a battery is designed for. If you exceed that, the batteries life is dramatically shortened. Either get more batteries or lower the load.
For example, a Trojan J200RE battery has 1600 cycles at a DoD of 50%, about 5 years.
At a DoD of 20%, you can get 4000 cycles – nearly 10 years of life.
How do you know the DoD of the batteries?
Never use volts to determine the State of Charge (SOC). It is extremely inaccurate and difficult if you want to do it right. If your batteries are important, and they are as they cost the most, then it is a good idea to invest in tried and tested piece of equipment like a Victron Battery monitor, to ensure you stay within the design limits of the battery/batteries you bought. Here: https://www.victronenergy.com/battery-monitors/bmv-700
And then you get batteries and batteries. Not all batteries are deep cycle, even if the label says so. Batteries designed specifically for Solar off-grid use are the best buys for long periods of no power. They are in the 200ah ranges, 6v or 12v.
If there are short infrequent interruptions, save some money and buy the ‘Deep Cycle’ (they are not) Leisure type batteries. They tend to be 100ah or 105ah ranges, 12v batteries. Designed for UPS’es and or weekend camping.
48volt systems – for a system in excess of 3000w and bigger:
Versus 12v system – for systems max 1000w
Powering your loads?
Rule of thumb: Any inverter must not be used for extended periods of time at more than 80% of its rated power. They will work, but under constant strain.
You can get modified, square sine wave, or pure sine wave inverters. Sine wave inverters are more expensive, better quality and last longer.
Modified or Square wave inverters may cause a buzzing on your stereo system, LED lights may be affected, sound system gets a buzzing noise.
And you can have a problem running fridges / freezers on them, as those devices prefer a pure sine wave inverter.
Many off-the shelf low cost options are available, from small to larger, and they are not too expensive compared to pure solar inverters. And they have a lot of protections built in.
With 2 up to 8 x 100ah batteries, a UPS will be good for a number of hours depending on your loads.
Easiest and most cost effective solution for intermittent power failures, even long term ones.
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