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Show HN: We built a Plug-in Home Battery for the 99.7% of us without Powerwalls

pilaenergy.com

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Re: Show HN: We built a Plug-in Home Battery for the 99.7% of us without Powerwalls

#161

Post by nikodunk »

jodoherty wrote: post #148
crazygringo wrote: post #144

It looks beautiful. But I honestly don't understand what the market is. OP answered in one of the comments that it will run a single fridge for 32 hours. I understand the benefits of a UPS that will run your desktop computer during a brief power outage of a couple of hours. And I understand a generator that will keep your house running for 10 days after a natural disaster. And I understand a Powerwall that can suck u…

I might get this for my basement sump pump in case the power goes out during a storm.

This can start up a Sump Pump with a 7.8kW surge (2.4kw running output)

Re: Show HN: We built a Plug-in Home Battery for the 99.7% of us without Powerwalls

#162

Post by delfinom »

nikodunk wrote: post #156
crazygringo wrote: post #144

It looks beautiful. But I honestly don't understand what the market is. OP answered in one of the comments that it will run a single fridge for 32 hours. I understand the benefits of a UPS that will run your desktop computer during a brief power outage of a couple of hours. And I understand a generator that will keep your house running for 10 days after a natural disaster. And I understand a Powerwall that can suck u…

Great points! This is meant as whole room backup - so it’ll keep your fridge (and a few other small devices like wifi, etc) running for 2-3 days - a pretty long outage. It’s basically a huge, 21st century UPS. It can also do arbitrage and charge when it’s cheap and deploy the power when it’s expensive. The main problem with a powerwall is it doesn’t work for renters, and costs 20,000+ (and permits, etc) if you do own…

Bullshit on the fridge. A modern day french door uses almost 2 kWh per day at the mid range model level (which really isn't that different from older top freezers). Higher end fridges use even more. The 1.6 kWh capacity isn't enough for 2-3 days.

Re: Show HN: We built a Plug-in Home Battery for the 99.7% of us without Powerwalls

#163

Post by selykg »

nikodunk wrote: post #156
crazygringo wrote: post #144

It looks beautiful. But I honestly don't understand what the market is. OP answered in one of the comments that it will run a single fridge for 32 hours. I understand the benefits of a UPS that will run your desktop computer during a brief power outage of a couple of hours. And I understand a generator that will keep your house running for 10 days after a natural disaster. And I understand a Powerwall that can suck u…

Great points! This is meant as whole room backup - so it’ll keep your fridge (and a few other small devices like wifi, etc) running for 2-3 days - a pretty long outage. It’s basically a huge, 21st century UPS. It can also do arbitrage and charge when it’s cheap and deploy the power when it’s expensive. The main problem with a powerwall is it doesn’t work for renters, and costs 20,000+ (and permits, etc) if you do own…

I can’t afford something like this but I would absolutely get something similar to this if I could.

My sump pumps are literally one of my biggest home ownership worries.

Re: Show HN: We built a Plug-in Home Battery for the 99.7% of us without Powerwalls

#164

Post by chadconway »

Tade0 wrote: post #140
Rebelgecko wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In places like Germany it's supposedly becoming more common to have a solar panel on the balcony and use a similar plugin device. I think the legal situation in the US is more tricky unfortunately

Not only in Germany, as per Commission Regulation EU 2016/631 systems under 800W are not regulated as power generating facilities - you just need a two-way meter installed on request by your power company and you're good to go.

100% across Europe & Utah. Soon to be across the US!

Re: Show HN: We built a Plug-in Home Battery for the 99.7% of us without Powerwalls

#165

Post by chadconway »

turtlebits wrote: post #135
blcknight wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't call 1.6kWh tiny, running your fridge and charging phones for a day will have a big market in places that might get outages during the winter that last a day or two. How about apartment dwellers in cities? Not everyone needs something gigantic or permanent. They support up to 1200W of solar with the expansion pack. Running a cable out a window during a prolonged outage doesn't seem like a huge deal, but I'…

I'm not a fan of these devices in general as I'm more of a DIY, but... A Ecoflow Delta 2 Max is $1100, gives you 2kWh capacity and 1000W of solar input. if you have a power outage, you can actually keep it topped off w/ solar while keeping your fridge, gas furnace, etc running. If you're gonna hang a wire out the window, why pay the premium for the pretty enclosure and screen?

Pila allows you to plug in solar as well.

Re: Show HN: We built a Plug-in Home Battery for the 99.7% of us without Powerwalls

#166

Post by chadconway »

VectorLock wrote: post #155
coleashman wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This audience is definitely more up on tech - I've been surprised how often folks I talk to have never heard of UPS's! We know we're not the first people to think of automatic plug in backup :) Aspirationally, we aim to do to the UPS what the Powerwall did to the lead acid battery bank -- Bring it into the 21st century, level up to better technology, add software intelligence so it's not sitting idle 99% of the time,…

>add software intelligence so it's not sitting idle 99% Its a battery backup, how would it not be sitting idle 99% of the time?

It can charge when energy is cheap & discharge when energy is expensive. If you have solar it can charge when solar is producing and discharge at night.

Re: Show HN: We built a Plug-in Home Battery for the 99.7% of us without Powerwalls

#167

Post by Aurornis »

nikodunk wrote: post #156
crazygringo wrote: post #144

It looks beautiful. But I honestly don't understand what the market is. OP answered in one of the comments that it will run a single fridge for 32 hours. I understand the benefits of a UPS that will run your desktop computer during a brief power outage of a couple of hours. And I understand a generator that will keep your house running for 10 days after a natural disaster. And I understand a Powerwall that can suck u…

Great points! This is meant as whole room backup - so it’ll keep your fridge (and a few other small devices like wifi, etc) running for 2-3 days - a pretty long outage. It’s basically a huge, 21st century UPS. It can also do arbitrage and charge when it’s cheap and deploy the power when it’s expensive. The main problem with a powerwall is it doesn’t work for renters, and costs 20,000+ (and permits, etc) if you do own…

> Great points - however this can keep your fridge running for 2-3 days (a pretty long outage).

Your own marketing page claims 32 hours (a little over 1 day).

It's the very first icon in the table.

EDIT: And your other comment now says 3-4 days for a fridge ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43338397 ). Getting hard to believe all of these different numbers.

Re: Show HN: We built a Plug-in Home Battery for the 99.7% of us without Powerwalls

#168

Post by Aurornis »

selykg wrote: post #163
nikodunk wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great points! This is meant as whole room backup - so it’ll keep your fridge (and a few other small devices like wifi, etc) running for 2-3 days - a pretty long outage. It’s basically a huge, 21st century UPS. It can also do arbitrage and charge when it’s cheap and deploy the power when it’s expensive. The main problem with a powerwall is it doesn’t work for renters, and costs 20,000+ (and permits, etc) if you do own…

I can’t afford something like this but I would absolutely get something similar to this if I could. My sump pumps are literally one of my biggest home ownership worries.

> My sump pumps are literally one of my biggest home ownership worries.

There are a lot of sump pump backup solutions on the market at around half the price of this unit.

There are also a lot of similar lithium battery + solar devices at less than half the price: https://us.ecoflow.com/products/delta-2-portable-power-stati...

Re: Show HN: We built a Plug-in Home Battery for the 99.7% of us without Powerwalls

#169

Post by bigtimesink »

nikodunk wrote: post #156
crazygringo wrote: post #144

It looks beautiful. But I honestly don't understand what the market is. OP answered in one of the comments that it will run a single fridge for 32 hours. I understand the benefits of a UPS that will run your desktop computer during a brief power outage of a couple of hours. And I understand a generator that will keep your house running for 10 days after a natural disaster. And I understand a Powerwall that can suck u…

Great points! This is meant as whole room backup - so it’ll keep your fridge (and a few other small devices like wifi, etc) running for 2-3 days - a pretty long outage. It’s basically a huge, 21st century UPS. It can also do arbitrage and charge when it’s cheap and deploy the power when it’s expensive. The main problem with a powerwall is it doesn’t work for renters, and costs 20,000+ (and permits, etc) if you do own…

> Great points - however this can keep your fridge running for 2-3 days (a pretty long outage).

$1,000 buys a lot of groceries. It's cheaper to to have a small supply of shelf stable food for outages.

> It can also do arbitrage and charge when it’s cheap and deploy the power when it’s expensive.

This has the same problem. It takes a long time to make back the $1000.

Re: Show HN: We built a Plug-in Home Battery for the 99.7% of us without Powerwalls

#170

Post by VectorLock »

amluto wrote: post #123
coleashman wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. I'm actually hopeful we see a generic MID standard emerge with folks like ConnectDER well positioned to support that, so more homes can benefit and households can gain the ability to flexibly try different batteries without ripping out their panels every time. If not, we could definitely build our own (helped build 2 generations of Tesla's MID as well as 3 generations of SPAN Panels with MID functionality). Happy…

Huh, I hadn’t seen ConnectDER before. That’s cute. It’s not entirely clear to me how it interacts with power sources in the house, and it’s also not clear to me whether it’s standardized enough so that a different MID could be used in its place with the same inverters/batteries/whatever. I would love to see the industry standardize on a MID protocol well enough for applications like V2H/V2G to work without absurd lev…

I've seen this "meter plug piggy back vampire tap" scheme used for EV chargers, looks cool to use it for grid tie generators too.
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