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Power Cuts - Contingency Plan

  • 06-01-2025 04:17PM
    #1
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,847 ✭✭✭


    Just sense checking something here before I start looking for prices for electricians. Apologies in advance if I'm wording this badly, but will do my best below.

    We've solar (6.8Kw) with a hybrid inverter but no battery. We'll likely be fitting a battery in the next year or so.

    We're quite rural and have power cuts a few times a year, and they usually last 2-3 days. We currently have a generator that we run and we run an extension lead through a window to run essentials off it, but we're looking at having an input for the generator fitted to the house so we can run the house from it during a power cut, just avoiding using anything at all with a heavy load (washing machine/dryer/shower etc).

    In an ideal world, our electricity failover would work as follows:

    • Mains/Solar/Battery as everyday solution.
    • During power cut, battery is available until depletion.
    • Backup is that we can switch over to running generator when neither mains or solar/battery are available.

    So questions:

    1. At the moment, I'm guessing if we add a battery, that battery will work in bullet point one above, but wouldn't be available if mains cut out - is that correct?
    2. If so, what do we need to make it available in the case of a power cut? I'm guessing a switch which isolates it from the mains so it doesn't feed back to the grid or something similar?
    3. If assumption in point 2 is correct, then what would be needed to facilitate both a switch to change to running from battery and then separately to running from generator?


Comments

  • Moderators, Home & Garden Moderators Posts: 7,102 Mod ✭✭✭✭graememk


    What your looking for is a Changeover switch or a generator change over switch.

    You possibly could cascade them to allow switching from generator or Inverter.

    Some hybrid inverters(I know sunsynk do) have a generator input, so it can charge your batteries from a generator.



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