Generator or Battery Backup (residential)

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marmathsen

Senior Member
Location
Seattle, Washington ...ish
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
Good morning folks!

I just got off the phone with a client who is interested in an ATS and generator or battery backup for their home. I don't have any experience with the battery backup systems.

I'm wondering if anyone has a good resource (aside from NEC 480,706 and local reqs) that would be a good primer (or more advanced) for me to consider basic system design and considerations.

I decided against posting this in the PV forum, so I'm hoping some knowledgeable PV folks are watching this forum as well.
 
I see a lot of battery systems going in and for the price I don't thing I would put one in my house. the Tesla battery is about $10k installed. The battery system has a limited charge so in an area with extended power outages you can't do much. If you have natural gas to the house a generator will run a long time and not cost as much as a battery system.
 
I've run some numbers on using battery storage in lieu on of genset in the past. With the exception of some specialized applications battery storage for general applications is a long way off from becoming mainstream and ready for primetime. There are some applications where battery storage along with a genset (so the genset just runs part time and under load more toward the design load of the of the genset) make sense but not for typical backup of most garden variety loads such as a home or business.
 
Last edited:
marmathsen said:
Good morning folks!

I just got off the phone with a client who is interested in an ATS and generator or battery backup for their home. I don't have any experience with the battery backup systems.
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If you are a Generac dealer they offer training for the PWRcell battery backup system.

I wouldn't go through it for one customer unless you intend to make it a permanent business offering and market it as such.
 
If you’re not a Generac dealer you can buy pwrcell components from electricgeneratorsdirect.com

If you want to protect the whole house you would need the transfer switch. If you use a “priority loads panel” then you wouldn’t need the transfer switch. If you’re only running off the batteries when the power goes out I would put smart management modules in to lock out the power hungry appliances if using the transfer switch.

Here’s a screenshot of a 9kwh system expandable to 18 kWh and doesn’t include a transfer switch. You would be solar ready if you decided to add solar in the future.

3ca22bcfec7837517038541c6ce3b44f.jpg



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