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brkyesterday at 5:23 PM3 repliesview on HN

For a relatively small battery like that, it's not going to last for days. In the typical outage where that battery would carry you, you can typically just leave the fridge closed and it will stay cold enough to prevent 99% of your stuff from spoiling. For most people (at least the US), it's not super easy to get at the plug in the back of the fridge anyway.

Running HVAC is usually more of a concern, especially in winter or peak of summer, and those aren't device that you can hot-plug, and a small battery wouldn't help there anyway.

I like the idea of whole-house batteries, but to really make it practical you're talking about thousands of dollars to the battery, install, etc. And you still don't have extensive run time, which is why I think you see most people still leaning towards permanent or portable generators way more than batteries.


Replies

jerfyesterday at 5:30 PM

People need to make decisions about how much resiliency they want. A medium-sized battery greatly enhances your options in an outage. A "solar generator" expands them yet farther. A whole-house generator somewhat farther. It's a lot easier and cheaper if you don't insist that your "resiliency" be "I live my life with no compromises whatsoever".

But I would advocate that "zero resiliency" needs to be seen as being socially irresponsible. It is socially irresponsible that as soon as a service goes out that you are immediately in an emergency. You should not offload basic resiliency on to emergency services. Yes, if you take a direct hit from a tornado you're going to be leaning on emergency services, but the house a quarter mile from touchdown that may be out for three or four days needs to be able to deal with that. If nothing else, emergency supplies are a lot cheaper when it's not an emergency.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and especially so when perfect is so much more expensive and so much less relevant than the good.

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apercuyesterday at 5:56 PM

Fair, but I live in a wooded, semi-rural area and have had 7 outages this year, with one lasting over 8 hours.

tonymetyesterday at 5:30 PM

sure we can quibble over convenience, but it's an outage, and you have to make it work. Look at the testing for the Anker Solix S2000 they are getting 2+ days of regular refrigerator use , which is what people care about primarily .

What other option is easier or more affordable? A generator has to remain outside, so it needs panel connection ($$) , lots of extensions ( $, hassle), needs a generous fuel supply, and regular maintenance.

And plug-in solar is becoming legal in the usa. within 3 years everyone will be running these little things, and you'll come around.

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