Use my 36 Volt pack as backup during long power outage?

mattadata

Recently I was without AC power in my house for an extended period of time. I got to thinking how could I leverage the pack in my cart to run some small appliances in the house.

Are DC to AC inverters most efficient at lower or higher voltages?
Should I get a 36 volt DC inverter? Or put the batteries in series and get a 6 or 12 volt inverter?

BGW

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Gregorio

Small inverters for light duty use are usually 12 or 24volt. As they get bigger, they typically jump to 48v and skip right over 36. It takes big energy to power up a house but keeping your freezer cold and a couple of lights on is not too much to ask. Magnum Energy has some very good inverters that will do that with your GC battery pack.

I have an Outback 8048 (8000 watts @4 with 24 2v 915ah batteries powering my my home during outages. This $9000 battery pack is significantly larger than anything found in a golf cart and it only lasts about 12 hours idling a couple of refers, entertainment and networking systems. This equates to 500 watts an hour which is not much.

Nate

Nate

Hey Gregorio, just curious, how many hours are those 915Ah batteries rated over?
Also, is that 500Wh over the 12 hours? That's 6KW total and seems a little low for that size battery bank to me but I don't know all the stats on your system.

Thanks Gregorio.

mattadata

Thanks. That is what I was looking for.

Revolution

Once I get solar power installed at the house the carts will be back up power to the main battery bank. You can find inverters from 12 to 48 votes. Anything more than 48 votes gets hard to find, due to NEC regulations.

Gregorio

It's a 24 hour rate. They are Concorde AGM. You are very correct on that guestimate! However, I have 22KVA LPG generator to make up for it!

Honestly, I sized the battery pack to handle my house under load for a few hours. Most outages are less than 2-3 hours. Anything more than that, and I will run the generator. I would love to be able to go all night without running the generator but that would be a very expensive luxury.