Power Out Solar Battery Bank In
I was on my radio, participating in the QRP Fox hunt and trying to get the NM Fox, K5DI when the power went out Thursday night at 10:14 February 25th 2010. By the light of my laptop I unplugged my radio and headed to bed. It was very windy that night. The winds shook window panes in the bedroom waking up our puppy, who barked and my husband, who stopped snoring. The next day the power was still out. We dug out the power cord and ran the fridge to the inverter that runs to our solar battery bank. We thought it would be a few hour event and our power would be back up within a few hours. After cranking up the radio we found out winds exceeded 90 miles an hour just a short hop NE of us in Portsmouth. Powerlines and trees were down everywhere. The outage extended to over 600K in our immediate area. Over half of our state was without power. Once the fridge was going and shut off we ran the freezer for a while. We had no internet connection on Friday, Comcast was down. Our only connection to the world was news from my Droid via Verizon, a crank up power generated radio that gave us news throughout the weekend from WBZ 1030 in Boston, and FloTV which gave us news on Saturday morning about the Chile quake from CNN. We learned from the radio report that our power outage was very extensive, and it would be a multi day power outage for most people. In light of the quake in Chile we put things in perspective, we have a home, heat, light and food. We hunkered down and decided to use our resources as judiciously as possible.
Luckily when Harry heard the wind on Thursday night he filled buckets of water so we could flush the toilet, it came in handy. I had the Big Berkley out and filled with potable water, things we have unfortunately learned to do here because of the number of times our power goes out.
On Friday morning I made coffee via a hand burr grinder and french press with water heated up on the woodstove. I pulled out a few bags of fruit from the freezer, and emptied them into a large bowl for healthy snacking since I didn't know how well fruit would hold up without the freezer on it's usually cycling. I wasn't sure what our 420 amp hour battery bank, powered by our two 175W 24 volt pannels would be capable of. Harry gave me the bad news that the wx looked like it would either be snowing or overcast for the next 5 days. That means our solar panels wouldn't be able to recharge the battery bank. I wondered if we would be throwing food out. I asked Harry to pull out the generator in case we needed it. He did but he wasn't able to get it working, he ripped it apart, even pulling the spark plug but it wouldn't even sputter. I could only hope for the best that our little system would get us through. My plan was to run the fridge until the compressor shut off and then to plug in the freezer and run it for a couple of hours about every 5-6 hours.
By Saturday afternoon we had internet...I would occasionally check by plugging in the cable modem. Once I knew internet was back I plugged in the cable modem and wireless router to the Xantrax...we were both online with our laptops for about 15 minutes, we caught up on news, the Unitil power update, and mail. By night I was feeling a bit more confidant, I pulled up the lid on the freezer, pulled out some frozen veggies and a large thick pork chop, all frozen solid and cooked them on the woodstove, life is good. I had given my dad my multimeter so I wasn't able to measure the voltage of the battery bank. We drove to Plaistow and bought a new one from Home Depot. I felt even better when the voltage was showing as 12.9. Between the snow and overcast weather the battery bank was not charging back as it would on an even mildly cloudy day...but we were still in the ball game.
By Sunday morning we still were without power, no utility crews in sight. I was still running the fridge until I heard the compresser shut off then I'd plug in the freezer and run it for a couple of hours. I pulled out a few frozen short ribs and threw them in the wood cookstove oven along with a couple of potatoes. By midday the voltage was showing around 12.3. By early afternoon we saw the utility trucks arrive on the street, we were hopefull we'd have our power back. By mid afternoon, our power was back on, we plugged out of our inverter and back into our household outlets. No food lost, our system a huge success!!!!
Here is what we ran for almost 3 days:
Fridge: From about 7am to about 9pm about every 3-4 hours until the compressor shut off. (Our fridge is a freezerless fridge.)
Freezer: From about 7am to about 9pm I'd run it for about 2 hours about every 5 hours. (Our Freezer is an ancient 10cu' Westinghouse model)
Minimal Internet: Wireless Router, Cable Modem for about 15 minutes total run from Xantrax
Cell Phone Charging: From Xantrax
Huge success!!!! And I went from "Geek Mom" to "Super Mom" and I even got a "I'm glad you put in the system."
No generator noise, no generator gas smell, no gas cost, no running around towns looking for gas stations that are open!!!! Great little system.
