A Prius can power your home in a snowstorm

comments from our community

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  Posted by petrfrost Sat Jan 3, 2009 11:25am PST

  putting electricity into the house power grid is VERY (I repeat VERY)dangerous for repair workers. Power generated can feed back into the grid and pose a serious threat.

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  Posted by guyinpcoh Sat Jan 3, 2009 11:33am PST

  Maybe we ought to buy a couple Prius engines to power our homes and say goodbye to these electric companies that charge whatever they want.

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  Posted by lemke_jim Sat Jan 3, 2009 11:43am PST

  A typical small gasoline engine will have a brake specific fuel consumption (bsfc) of about 0.4lbs of fuel per horsepower hour of operation. 3kW is about 4 hp. 3 days are 72 hours. Therefore (if the load is a steady 3 kW), 0.4lbs/hp-hr X 4 hp X 72 hours = 115.2 lbs of fuel. Gasoline weighs about 6 lbs/gal, the fuel consumption would be about 19.2 gallons. Actually, at only 4 hp the efficiency will be worse than 0.4 bsfc - probably 0.5

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  Posted by guyinpcoh Sat Jan 3, 2009 11:45am PST

  I guess we would need to buy the batteries to.

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  Posted by David L Sat Jan 3, 2009 11:55am PST

  I did the same thing with a Chevy Cavalier.

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  Posted by Gyrene0321 Sat Jan 3, 2009 12:22pm PST

  Are you kidding me? Like this is news?! When hurricane Ike rolled through last September, I used a power inverter I had stowed away in the work truck for a couple of days for the same purpose, yet you didn't see my name mentioned. Not that I am saying that I would want it mentioned, it's just that - it is not important enough to even mention. Like the guy in the first comment said, you can buy a power inverter and any radio shack, wal-mart, and/or most dollar general stores. Big freakin' deal.

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  Posted by trinh p Sat Jan 3, 2009 12:36pm PST

  dude i wish i had a prius, and that's soooooo coooooool

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  Posted by drhae2 Sat Jan 3, 2009 1:29pm PST

  To rtshapiro: The energy isn't drawn from the alternator, but rather from the on-board drive batteries. They put out 400 V and have a very large capacity. The car automatically senses when they need charging, and the engine turns on to recharge them.

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  Posted by Danny Sat Jan 3, 2009 2:44pm PST

  No drhae2, thats not true. Read the article, the power comes from the 12volt battery. If you were powering from the 300-400 volt batteries you would need a transformer not an inverter. What they are talking about here you can do with any car.

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  Posted by coatesdon@ymail.com Sun Jan 4, 2009 8:53am PST

  You can buy a 750 watt inverter at Home Depot for about $89. This is enough to power the refrigerator via extension cord or your hot water heater, if it is natural gas. But don't plug it into a house outlet since there is too much load for the inverter. Most cars have more power at 55 mph than your house uses on the average. I powered these items for 5 days during an ice storm when we lost power and saved several hundred dollars worth of freezer food. It took about one tank of gasoline and easily paid for the inverter.

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  Posted by TerrisL Sun Jan 4, 2009 11:38am PST

  I see a lot of posts that say things like "duh" but I wouldn't have the first idea what to plug the other end of the battery cables to, unless you're telling me I need several really long extension cords. Clearly, the people who build our homes and make our cars are morons.

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  Posted by DonE Fri Jan 9, 2009 6:11am PST

  Geez. The New York Times again . . . For years, numerous RV generators have an "auto start" feature to provide a charge on RV coach batteries that have reached a specific level of discharge. (or start to run the air conditioners if the temperature reaches a preset temperature level) In any power failure we've had, sometimes for days at a time, (tornado's) I start our RV's 6.5 kw inverter/diesel generator and that unit powers most of the house. We could also run a secondary 2kw inverter at any time just by pushing a button. If the "on board" batteries run down enough the main inverter/generator will simply charge them back up.

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  Posted by Lisa Sun Jan 11, 2009 9:36pm PST

  I really have to wonder why so many of you are so rude to each other. Correcting spelling...use of "duh"...picture book? Certainly there's a polite way to get your point across. I'd be surprised if you acted that way towards your friends in person. At least I hope you don't. Just think about it...

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