Insight as an Electric Generator - like Priups.com

[jerrydelrey]

There was a power outage here on the island a few days ago. My coworkers were talking about generators. I was thinking can the Insight's IMA be used. Prius owners have a system to power there home. Can the Insight do the same.

I'm thinking enough to power my Fidge.

Has anyone done anything like this to there HCH, Insight?

The Correct Answer

It basically uses the Prius as a Generator.

[Cobb]

Not to my knowledge. Most experitments here are to add power to the INA system. You would think a continious load like that would cause something to get warm and stop for a few. Ive seen the car dp into regen at idle when the battery is disconnected, not sure of the available power.

[jerrydelrey]

From the stuff i read about the prius. The generator is strong enough to power up a UPS battery in a few minutes, then shut off. once the battery is drained, the car starts back up, and recharges the battery. They don't use the Hybrid Battery, but an external battery.

[retepsnikrep]

Yes the Insight could be used as a generator, but would take a bit of work and need a high voltage 150-180V DC load.

[MN Driver]

My two cents.

Don't connect your car to your house, it's more work than its worth.

With the Honda IMA system the battery will be roughly between 140-170 volts, under no load when the battery is low its going to be around 140, the car then gives a negative recal and you better hope the load isn't anything more than what the car will pump into it. I wouldn't pump 3kw as suggested by the site from the stock system, it WILL NOT replenish that. You'll also have to convert the pack voltage to house voltage unless you are doing it through the 12v system, which would be the safest but the 75amp DC-DC convertor isn't going to be happy and the conversion losses from engine, through the motor, to the pack and out the DC-DC converter and then through an invertor is tons of losses.

The Insight engine won't like it either, the engine can't maintain operating temperature at idle unless its a warm summer day, if operating the engine at idle speeds without much load for hours on end(or intermittently) to run the furnace to heat your house, refrigerator to keep the food cold and to light up the area of the house you are in, its not going to be happy running a low temperature for a long time, combustion blowby will introduce fuel into the oil that won't burn up and you are inviting problems to happen.

Rather than playing with the car you can do what I did and buy a portable generator. I have a transfer switch in the garage and all I need to do in the once a year power outage, if even that, is go outside, move the generator outside the garage so its exhausting outside, fill it with gas and check the oil, pull the cord, plug the generator into the transfer switch and switch over the circuits.

I paid $240 for a generator rated for 3000 watts continuous than can handle slightly more for a brief period for motor starting loads. This is plenty to run the furnace, a refrigerator, freezer, lights, some lights, and TV, laptop, cell phone charger, etc. When switching circuits, you usually don't want to start your motor loads at the same time so you start the furnace first and when the blower kicks on, I'll fire up the refrigerator and freezer. The transfer switch costs another $200 or so and whether you use a Prius or some other power source is still a requirement unless you've wired your furnace to unplug from the wall and plug into an extension cord of the proper gauge wiring, but then you are running every load you want off of extension cords.

3kw is plenty for me because I don't have any large loads to run such as an electric range, water pump, a form of heat that uses tons of power such as resistance heat or a heat pump, electric water heater, and I can live without air conditioning since I'm not down south. If I wanted to switch the entire house on at one time and not think diligently about my use I'd probably have to double that capacity but it would be pointless for me. I could run my air conditioner off of a 6000kw 240v generator but I see no point and don't have room for a generator of that size or the desire to store enough gas to run such a larger load anyway.

It's easy for me to do what I'm doing and doesn't require that I operate a car and uses suprisingly little fuel running the appliances.

Looking over that site again, I'm not sure how they expect the Prius to be an uninterruptable power supply, are people plugging their Prius into their house everyday for the sole purpose of the rare occassion that they might lose power? Even if someone had a plug-in Prius conversion, it will still require a a break-before-make type switch installed and possibly an extra connection to the car to get this to work.

The only way I'd ever use my car for power at home would be if I didn't need to do anything other than run my laptop, and the modem for internet, and charge a cell phone and then I would fire up the generator before going to sleep, when waking up, and maybe one extra time during the day to allow the refrigerator to run its cycle and I'd leave the doors to the refrigerator shut.

[jerrydelrey]

Yeah, probably won't do this. I was curious if anyone ever did it with an Insight.

I do have a power inverter from costco. 1800W for $75. I used it once, for only a few hours. I used it off my Nissan Hardbody's Battery. (because i really didn't care if it's battery drained). Alot simpler than all that stuff.