Title reads like at ad, but this is a new way to reach energy independence. I actually have a small EcoFlow device and it’s pretty good for the price.

I hope this tech can be made available in the US soon.

  • greentreerainfire@kbin.social
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    5 months ago

    Yeah. My grandfather (former electrician and electrical inspector) had a specific outlet he’d plug a gas generator in to back feed power into the house. This was in the 80s and 90s.

    He also pointed out that he turned the main off so it did not back feed into the grid and power lines that a lineman is expecting to not be live.

    • sugartits@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      From the article:

      And when there’s a power outage, the PowerStream will turn off automatically to ensure there’s no electricity in the wires in order to protect line workers from shock. The PowerStream will only turn back on when the grid power returns.

    • ramble81@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      Yeah my parents house had an rv/generator hookup and it had a huge bar across both the breakers so power could only flow in one direction. If you hooked up a generator it would cut the house off from the mains.

    • corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca
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      5 months ago

      Your grandfather’s extra outlet for the alternate feed was the other half of a switch that flipped over when the mains power died. It shuts off the power connection to the house by flipping over and ensures no power goes back over the line, among other things. We have these - albeit the size of a washing machine - in really big datacenters.

    • scarabic@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Yes as your granddad points out, you can’t just plug a power source into any old outlet at any time. Selling a system like this on Amazon to apartment dwellers seems to encourage just that behavior.

      • elmicha@feddit.de
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        5 months ago

        You cannot plug in any old power source, but you can with special micro inverters.

    • Valmond@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Thanks for the info, very interesting!

      I wonder if just plugging a power source in a socket would work in a more modern setting?

      Had all electricity redone last year, there was some crazy stuff from the fifties, a hot line going everywhere, just plug into it and ground it, power everywhere 😵‍💫. Guess I could have plugged some power in anywhere (cutting off the mains).

      Now there are differential and fuses for every applience etc.

      • towerful@programming.dev
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        5 months ago

        If you want to power your house independently from the grid, your house has to be independent from the grid.
        Anything where you sell your excess power back to the grid is in tight cooperation with the grid operators.

        Standard house wiring is not set up to accommodate back feeding the grid nor independently powering.
        So you will need a changeover switch professionally fitted if you want an independent power source, or your solar panel installers will fit the appropriate equipment to back-feed the grid.
        Anything else will likely involve deaths, fires, broken equipment, criminal prosecution, insurance invalidation and all that nasty stuff.

        • PlantJam@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          insurance invalidation

          For clarity, if you do a stupid job at your DIY solar installation and it burns your house down, that is likely a covered cause of loss. There isn’t a policy exclusion for stupidity, unfortunately.

          There may be an exclusion for the panels themselves since you could argue that improper workmanship was the proximate cause of loss, but the ensuing damage would likely be covered.

          A similar scenario would be an improper plumbing repair flooding your house. Insurance won’t pay to redo the plumbing that was wrong, but it will pay to fix the water damage.

      • scarabic@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        As your own story shows, even in today’s modern times, there is planet of aging wiring still out there and in use.

        If you’re asking whether it’s possible to build a home that can work this way, it’s been possible forever and it doesn’t require anything fancy, just a properly rated input outlet (not the same as a regular old bedroom wall plug) and a switch to disconnect from the mains so you aren’t electrifying the grid while workers are repairing it. Whole house generators have been a thing forever. You just have to take some elementary precautions. You don’t just plug some dynamo you bought off Amazon into any old bathroom outlet and say “tada!”