Lose power much?

Lose power much? We seem to lose power a lot more here than when we lived in upstate New York.  We seem to have lost power routinely several times a year since we moved here nearly 20 years ago.

Twice I remember losing power in upstate NY during the 30 years we lived there, once, for about two hours; the other time, for about 6 hours.

I can’t recall anyone in Upstate buying a generator.  Generators here seem almost as plentiful as the family car – a near necessity.

We would probably join the crowd, except our lot is too small; we have no room for a propane generator and less room for a gas generator unless we put it out where the snow is deepest.

We have fireplaces but no place to store wood. We do have wood pellets with special trays for burning them, but when we lost power a few years ago for 40 hours, the pellets and even those paraffin logs hardly heated the house.

So what can we do if we lose power?  Bundle up?  Head to a motel?

There’s hope for people like us.

Tesla has a backup storage battery – the Powerwall – and Maine’s Pika Energy Company also makes a backup battery. Ideally these would be hooked to a home’s solar panels.

But what if your house isn’t aligned for solar or too shady?

The Tesla battery can store energy from our CMP power, but the cost installed to power our two Rennai propane heaters, our fridge and a few light outlets would be nearly $12,500 with one Tesla Powerwall. The Pika battery is more expensive and designed for solar.  These are the only household storage batteries I know about.

With Tesla’s using more of their huge Nevada desert factory and their plans to sell their Powerwall and solar equipment at 800 Home Depot stores as well as perhaps the Lowe’s chain, prices for the Powerwall may fall.

I hope so. One of these back up batteries may be our best bet to see us through the cold winter hours when we lose power.

Otherwise we might have to bundle up and head to a motel.

Bill Baker

About Bill Baker

Bill's interest in a clean place to live is rooted in growing up in the country – a cornfield across the road and fields, sandstone cliffs and hundreds of acres of woods where he spent many hours.