I've got a fairly simple system, Solar Roof feeding single Gateway thru two inverters, with Powerwalls. Grid power, inverters, and Powerwalls connect to Gateway, and the Gateway feeds the load center thru the 200A main breaker. It's been in operation since mid June of 2023. Grid power outages are common here, so before getting the solar system I used a generator during outages. The generator puts out a 30A 240V circuit, which feeds my load center bus thru a sub panel from the barn. I was in the habit of manually isolating from the grid to do this.
Yesterday, wind took out our power once more via downed trees interrupting the supply. The initial estimate from BGE was about 3 days for restoration, they had many outages from the large storm. I'm only generation about 12-16 kwh on a good day this time of year, so even tho I had charged my batteries to 100% before the montages I was not certain about how long an outage I could weather. It only ended up a 17 hour outage, and we didn't run the heat pump, just ran backup propane heat. Got decent sun today, and might have made 3 days or more with low use and decent generation.
But.... I began to think about running the generator. I thought of two possible ways of doing this:
1. Wait until the powerwalls go low, throw the main to isolate from the Gateway, and use generator power as before, or
2. Run the generator at night, depending on the Gateway for grid isolation, to power low-level demand and charge Powerwalls
I don't know if that second method is actually feasible. Does anyone have any suggestions or opinions?
Yesterday, wind took out our power once more via downed trees interrupting the supply. The initial estimate from BGE was about 3 days for restoration, they had many outages from the large storm. I'm only generation about 12-16 kwh on a good day this time of year, so even tho I had charged my batteries to 100% before the montages I was not certain about how long an outage I could weather. It only ended up a 17 hour outage, and we didn't run the heat pump, just ran backup propane heat. Got decent sun today, and might have made 3 days or more with low use and decent generation.
But.... I began to think about running the generator. I thought of two possible ways of doing this:
1. Wait until the powerwalls go low, throw the main to isolate from the Gateway, and use generator power as before, or
2. Run the generator at night, depending on the Gateway for grid isolation, to power low-level demand and charge Powerwalls
I don't know if that second method is actually feasible. Does anyone have any suggestions or opinions?
