Hi everyone. This is my first post so please bare with me. We had an ice storm here in eastern Canada about 3 yrs ago. Some people went without power for almost 3 weeks. Fortunately I was lucky living near a substation I was out for only 4 days. This woke me up and I promised myself when I got in a better financial situation I would install a system to make my home self sufficient through the winter. My home is 2000sqFT 2 levels (basement and upper floor) I just recently installed a 18k BTU minisplit in the basement which will be the workhorse for heating my home this winter. I have baseboard heaters upstairs for backup for now until I installed a 9k-12k minisplit next year. I just installed a watthour meter on my 18k minisplit to monitor my daily KWh daily usage vs outside ambient temperature which should give me some good real world data. The unit draws 2250W max on the nameplate. This morning I raised the temperature to get it working hard and it was drawing 1920W and outside ambient temperatures were around 0c/32f.
I am a Power Systems technician by trade and as such well versed in maintaining 125V DC battery lead acid battery banks and also work on AC systems from 120V/240V residential service to 12.47KV distribution to 345KV transmissions systems. I am seriously looking at building my own LiFePO4 battery bank as you can get raw cells really cheap.
During an emergency situation I will want to be able to run at a minimum, a deep well pump, Fridge, deep freeze, microwave, 10 lights, router/modem and hopefully a dedicated 9k-12k(1600W max) minisplit for heat for the whole winter if needed. I will most likely use propane for cooking.
I live on a 5 acre wooded lot so I am considering putting in a wood stove as a backup emergency heat source although I will never use it except for emergency. I would still like to do a cost analysis if its possible to drive the minisplit off a battery bank backup and one without.
I live in Canada on the 47degrees N so I know off the bat I'm gonna need a lot more solar for the winter to drive my emergency backup needs. Also want to grid tie my system and try to achieve net zero. Here the utility company will take all my surplus power and I can take it back on a 1 to 1 system meaning every KWh I give them I can take back. The only caveat is I can accumulate a reserve with the utility company throughout the year but on april1st any accumlated KWhs are zeroed. So if I give them 100KWh more than I used on April1st I forfeit those KWh and start banking from zero.
I would appreciate any input in cost analysis and system designs.
I am a Power Systems technician by trade and as such well versed in maintaining 125V DC battery lead acid battery banks and also work on AC systems from 120V/240V residential service to 12.47KV distribution to 345KV transmissions systems. I am seriously looking at building my own LiFePO4 battery bank as you can get raw cells really cheap.
During an emergency situation I will want to be able to run at a minimum, a deep well pump, Fridge, deep freeze, microwave, 10 lights, router/modem and hopefully a dedicated 9k-12k(1600W max) minisplit for heat for the whole winter if needed. I will most likely use propane for cooking.
I live on a 5 acre wooded lot so I am considering putting in a wood stove as a backup emergency heat source although I will never use it except for emergency. I would still like to do a cost analysis if its possible to drive the minisplit off a battery bank backup and one without.
I live in Canada on the 47degrees N so I know off the bat I'm gonna need a lot more solar for the winter to drive my emergency backup needs. Also want to grid tie my system and try to achieve net zero. Here the utility company will take all my surplus power and I can take it back on a 1 to 1 system meaning every KWh I give them I can take back. The only caveat is I can accumulate a reserve with the utility company throughout the year but on april1st any accumlated KWhs are zeroed. So if I give them 100KWh more than I used on April1st I forfeit those KWh and start banking from zero.
I would appreciate any input in cost analysis and system designs.