Ford Lightning as backup power

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wwhitney said:
But for the nested solution, the question is whether the Ford/SunRun controller is designed to deal with AC coupled PV when off-grid, e.g. when necessary can it throttle AC coupled PV by raising the frequency?
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Extremely unlikely IMO.
 
GoldDigger said:
In particular because, AFAIK, there is not a standard for the raised frequency signaling across manufacturers.
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Yeah we could really use some improvement there. For newer inverters you can probably use UL 1741 SA (or SB?) frequency-watt feature and the California Rule 21 guidelines. But yes, this is fraught and we don't know if the existing system will do it or how much hassle it would be set up.
 
jaggedben said:
Ok, right. In that case my guess is no, the Ford/Sunrun system likely doesn't support AC coupling with a third party solar. But I don't know for sure.
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Some more research is required, including tracking down the full installation manual, but my preliminary info is that the Ford/Sunrun solution is using a Delta E10_BDI inverter, and that its installation manual indicates support for AC coupling. To be confirmed.

Cheers, Wayne
 
JoeNorm said:
My customer wants to use a bidirectional charger and add an inverter for backup, I'm not sure were talking about the same thing?
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We’re not. The inverter system is exponentially more expensive. I think the equipment alone is close to $10k. There is a Sunrun installer here in the forum that has shared some details on price and installation you can find in a search.
 
wwhitney said:
Some more research is required, including tracking down the full installation manual, but my preliminary info is that the Ford/Sunrun solution is using a Delta E10_BDI inverter, and that its installation manual indicates support for AC coupling. To be confirmed.

Cheers, Wayne
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The inverter may be capable, but the Ford Charge Station Pro controls the DC contactors in the truck and its logic is to do so on loss of AC power. I don’t know if a workaround is possible or not.
 
retirede said:
The inverter may be capable, but the Ford Charge Station Pro controls the DC contactors in the truck and its logic is to do so on loss of AC power. I don’t know if a workaround is possible or not.
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From a brief glance at the Delta one-line diagrams, the Ford Charge Station Pro gets installed on the utility side of the MID(s), so it will be see any grid outage and I would expect do its thing as usual. I'm considering the configuration where the Delta MID is the top-level (closest to the grid) MID. I don't see how the presence of another MID/PV/BESS downstream (away from the grid) of the Delta MID would affect the Ford Charge Station Pro's behavior.

As long as the Delta inverter supports charging its stationary (and perhaps F150 Lightning) battery(s) from the AC side when in grid-forming mode, and can also raise its AC frequency to 62.5 Hz (or whatever the minimum frequency is to get all versions of UL 1471 grid following inverters to shut off), then there should be no conflict with the existing MID/PV/BESS being behind (downstream, away from the grid) the Delta MID.

And that is what I assume the manual means when it says it supports "AC coupling", although I've not read the whole manual to confirm that.

Cheers, Wayne
 
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I am not even sure if I(not being SunRun) am allowed to do anything and have it not void any warranties
 
JoeNorm said:
I am not even sure if I(not being SunRun) am allowed to do anything and have it not void any warranties
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Not all Lightning backup power installations are installed by SunRun. SunRun does not operate in every locale. The Lightning owner should have access to Ford’s installation requirements. As I recall, the only requirement was being licensed.
 
brantmacga said:
I installed a sub-panel at my brother’s house so he could feed essential loads from the 30A recep in his lightning, and it has been an ever loving nightmare to get working.

I interlocked a QO230 from the inlet and QO250SWN breaker as the sub panel main to isolate the neutral. The problem has been getting the lighting loads to not trip the GFCI in the Lightning. I’ve got all the recep circuits working (after finding a few receps where the ground was touching the neutral in the box), but he installed Lutron Caseta controls throughout his house, and they trip the GFCI every time. I’ve spent about 20 hours so far taking joints apart to find the loads that don’t trip it, but still haven’t figured out exactly what is causing it. I don’t know for sure yet if it’s the controls, or something in the fixtures.

He lives an hour away so it’s been tough to find time to get back over and continue troubleshooting. I would never attempt this install again.
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I finally got this install working over the weekend. My brother and his family were out of town so I had the house to myself to be able to properly troubleshoot and leave devices hanging out of the wall while I sorted it out. Ended up removing every switch and found a couple instances where neutrals from different circuits were tied together (3-ways from different circuits), a couple boxes where I just needed to loosen the clamps, and also had some baseboard nightlights where the neutral terminal of the lamp holder was touching the box. Took an entire Saturday to straighten it out, but it’s working. I used a gfci breaker in the panel to troubleshoot each circuit instead of resetting the truck GFCI each time. If you’re going to try this for a customer, I’d recommend T&M billing. Also, Square D no longer offers a 50A SWN breaker, and I had to find that from an online seller. The backfeed is just a QO230 with the intent that the homeowner will manage the loads if needed. It’s just lighting and receps though so I don’t expect any issues.

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