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We Ran Our Farmhouse Off a Chevy Silverado EV · Rural-E

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was a Friday afternoon.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: And within the week, we had lost power again.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: And usually when we lose power here, it's like, oh shoot, you know, what's yeah, what's going on?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: And this time it was like, oh my God, we lost power.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let's hook up the truck.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: So on this episode of Rule E Podcast, we're going to talk a little bit about emergency backup power and kind of some of the situations we get ourselves in here in the rural areas.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so, Michael, you're on with me here today again, co-hosting with me, and and I know you've been a part of these adventures, you know, looking at resiliency, energy resiliency really for the rural areas and stuff.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just want to start off, you know, kind of paint this picture, and this is a true story of what we uh experienced early the summer.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: So obviously we're in extreme fire danger, it's it's dry, thunderstorms are rolling in, it's mid-July, and our power goes out here at the house, and we've got lightning, dry lightning all around us.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we're sitting down here and with no power, we we don't have cell phone coverage here at the house.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: We use our Wi-Fi internet system, and also we have a gravity-fed water system, and so we have no we really have no water pressure if we need it and stuff.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: We're sitting down in this hole in this valley that we live in and can't really see what's going on out and around, but we know there's lightning all over because we can we can see it, we can hear it, and uh and it wasn't wasn't a good situation.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so it really forced me to start looking at some options on what we can do for backup power.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's what we're gonna talk about today.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I know, Michael, you've done some research on some of the different systems that are out there and available also, and I think we're looking at how we can how we can make these work in the rural areas.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: And um a couple of our previous episodes, uh, one of them with Troon Vineyard, they had the Monarch electric tractor, and they had actually used that when they were doing some uh bottling, uh a bottling process in the uh vineyard there in the winery, and their power went out and they pulled the tractor in and powered off that.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: We also have a you know, kind of after that after we recorded that and captured that moment and everything, another local winery had a similar type of thing.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: They were doing a bottling process and stuff, and they uh lost power, but they didn't have backup power, and I've heard they've lost, you know, several thousand dollars worth of product and stuff.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, it definitely makes you think about that.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think with me and here at our our small farm, more on the fire danger side of things, but if you're doing any sort of uh processing, you definitely don't want to lose power there too and stuff.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so um we'll kind of dive in and talk about a few of the the systems that we're aware of, uh maybe some of the more common uh systems that are out there and share a little bit about a new system that I had installed here at the house, and that was the general ink um uh general ink transfer switch.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Let me see what they actually call it here on their website.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I just you know it kind of it kind of comes in from this time of um being without power.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: Well and we're seeing this year it's one of the worst fire seasons on record in Oregon.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think this is top of mind for a lot of folks, not only in the Pacific Northwest, but really across across the western United States.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_02: Fires getting worse year to year.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so I think it's starting to people are starting to look at what solutions are available to me and how can I continue to power my home, my farm, my operation.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I know we had this summer we had the grasshopper fire here and it burnt just about uh it was almost a hundred thousand acres.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: And there was one night, um, well, two two consecutive days there, anyways, that it burnt uh just right near the house here.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: It actually burnt six homes just up the road from me.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we were at two houses as the fire was coming through, and there's no power at either situation.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so it just makes you really think about like how's my water system powered, you might say.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, do I have emergency backup power to run some sprinklers or those types of things?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so it really makes you think about that.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And uh both of those situations when the fire came through, there was no power to the house.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: The power had been cut or the poles had been compromised or what have you.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so it you know really makes us think about you know how we how we do this.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now we do have some gasoline-powered water pumps that we can use, kind of a fire pump type situation, but it doesn't help us here at the house itself and and stuff.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so um fast forward uh that that m that time in July, and that really got me thinking because I had bought one of these General Inc.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: kits, and basically what it is is a uh a unit where you pull out your electric power meter.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the utility person has to come out and do that.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: They pull the electric power meter out, and then it's a plug-in, kind of a collar unit you plug in, and it's actually got the transfer switch uh built into it uh and a plug in the bottom of it where you can plug your generator or whatever power source you have.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so I originally bought this unit and I was going to plug a generator into it or mobile battery pack or what have you.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then mid-summer I'd seen actually Ford Motor Company had partnered with General Inc.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and boy, that caught my eye, and they were advertising this for folks with the F-150 Lightning pickup truck.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, here's a here's an easy way for you to power or provide emergency power to your home from this truck.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I know we've talked about uh on one of our previous episodes about virtual power plants and and then part of that, the resiliency in it.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then another big movement that's going on is this V to X.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And we've talked a little bit about that, you know, and it used to be called vehicle to grid, but it's V to X and X being whatever you need the power for.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so we've talked a lot about how these tractors we have or the pickup trucks have outboard power and how they can be used for emergency power and stuff.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so um to go back to General Inc., um, I'd seen that Ford Motor Company had partnered with them and they were selling a kit specific to the Ford F-150 Lightning pickup truck, and I already had the unit and I had the cable, um, and we've actually got a Ford Lightning as part of our e-Farms fleet.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so I called and talked to General Inc.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: because there was another cable that you had to order to make that work.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, I'm not an electrical expert as far as uh the construction and how the pickup is is exactly set up and wired and stuff, but basically in general, your home has a bonded neutral and ground, and that's how it grounds to earth to meet the codes and the safety uh for your electrical wiring in your home.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the truck also has a bonded neutral and ground.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you uh just plug this General Inc.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: cable into the back of the output power in one of these trucks, it's gonna think it's a fault situation and it's gonna trip the GFI on the pickup.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so I called and talked to General Inc, and this package was available only uh and has only been approved for Ford uh products, which basically the Ford F-150 Lightning.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so I got one of got one of these ordered and basically was getting it set up so we oftentimes have that Ford Lightning here, and we could plug this in and make it work.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Trying to get trying to get it installed was a little bit tricky.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't exactly sure.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I didn't know if the utility could do it or if we was gonna have to have electrician.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so the utility came out and took a look at it, and and they have to approve the install of these of these general link systems.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And they come out and took a look at my setup here, and you know, so we're in this 100-plus-year-old farmhouse, and I'm not sure is it gonna work or is it not?
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: And the lineman that was here, he said, Well, you know, you're we're gonna need an electrician.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: There's one wire, there's a neutral wire that has to be ran, and the uh co-op wasn't able to do that because it's within the meter box, and so you have to get an electrician to do that.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so we set up another date for the utility to be here, the co-op to be here with one of their linemen, metermen guys, and then also an electrician.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: And uh both of them, you know, this was kind of new technology form.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so Michael and I happened to both be here because we wanted to see ourselves how this was going to work.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so the the utility meter guy, he pulled the meter out.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they went through their safety protocol with that and everything.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: The electrician took a look and there was one neutral wire that ran from this general link device into the meter base.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so the utility, you know, de-energized the system, pulled the meter face out, the electric meter face out.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: The electrician installed this one wire.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: They put the general link unit caller back where originally the meter face was, and then the meter face went on top of this unit.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: So we got you know photos of this installation and everything.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty slick.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: I only took them a few minutes, it's just a matter we did need both the utility here and electrician here to do this correctly and safely and everything.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh with the unit, basically, this general ink unit, it has the what you call switch gear transfer switch inside, so it senses if it's got utility power or if you're running on emergency or backup power or generator power, and it actually has a switch so it prevents any backfeeding into the grid, which that's a big thing.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you don't want to um be feeding power back into the grid if the utility's working on the power system and everything.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it also has a port in the bottom of this unit where you plug a cord in and then you run this cord or cable to whatever your power source is gonna be.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: So originally when I bought it, it was gonna be a generator, right?
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Either a um gasoline or a diesel power generator.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I think uh when I was looking on there, I think you could get kind of different sizes of these general link things.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I got the biggest one, which is a 40 amp unit, and I got a 40-foot cable for it because where the power meter is at my house, I needed to run it oh, probably about 30 feet out to the driveway where I'd have the generator going and everything.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: So we got we got this system installed.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was a Friday afternoon, and within the week we'd lost power again.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: And usually when we lose power here, it's like, oh shoot, you know, what's yeah, what's going on?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And this time it was like, oh my god, we lost power.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let's hook up the truck.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: The only thing was the Ford Lightning was gone, it wasn't here.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so um it was another one of those uh hot uh I think it was like a Sunday afternoon, hot and dry.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: And uh one of our other vehicles is a Chevy Silverado EV, and it's got a very similar system.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so, although I want to say this this connection cable isn't approved uh for Chevy or Chevrolet products, it's only approved for the Ford products.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we used it out of necessity and out of emergency.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so we pulled our other vehicles out of the way, we backed the Chevy Silverado in, made the connection, uh, plugged this special adapter cable into the bed of the truck where the uh 240 amp or 240 volt 30 amp outlet is, ran the cable, plugged it into the bottom of this generalink unit, everything was connected, we made sure everything was uh looking good, and then went in the truck and turned the outboard power on.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Everything came up.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: The whole house came back alive with power.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: The one, the couple things we did shut off.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: We shut off our uh we have an electric water heater, and then we shut off the um the heat pump unit because those those draw much more power than what the truck's able to producing.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: So the truck can produce up to 30 amps outboard power.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: The general ink unit's rated for 40 amps, but we're we're only gonna get so much power out of the truck.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and then we kind of we went around and checked, seen what was going on at the time.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: It took a few minutes for the Wi-Fi system to come back up.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's how we run our uh our phones through Wi-Fi calling and such.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: As soon as we turned the power on, I forgot uh to turn the emergency power on in the truck.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'd forgot I had one of the sprinkler pumps running.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Sprinklers started, and then we kind of came in the house and and was taking a look at okay, what's all on, what's not, how much are we going to be able to run.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: We ended up going, it was right at two and a half hours.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, the power outage.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: That was with like the fridge running and everything.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we had the fridge running um inside the house.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't run the microwave, didn't run the range or anything like that.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: We've actually got three freezers in the garage.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: All of those continued to run.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then we found out kind of after the fact that uh upstairs the boys had uh one of those uh wall unit air conditioning units running.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: And um uh af we you know we're kind of asking as the power was coming back on, hey, was that air conditioning unit running?
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, well, I don't know.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they're kind of questioning us, and we're like, we're they thought they were in trouble because they had it running.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, no, we're just trying to figure out like what was the total load we're able to run with this with this setup and everything.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so it ended up saving the day for us.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it just it, you know, usually you're not excited when the power went out, but for us to test this system out, it was pretty cool.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um pretty cool to have that.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: You called me and I was like, I don't think I've ever seen someone happy that the power was out because you were so excited to just test out the system and see how it was gonna work.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: Um so that was that was pretty cool.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I'm just I'm looking and I'm I think within the podcast here, I think we can be able to share some of the video and and photos of this setup that we had.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I just wanted to kind of look through because after we got done, uh going back to the truck, basically it was saying that the outward power transfer was on uh let me see here, it looks like two hours and fifty-six minutes.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it was almost three hours that that system was actually up and running.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I was kind of laughing about it because it said that we'd used 17 miles of range, and I was kind of laughing.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like the truck equated the amount of power we used to the amount of range.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the Chevy Silverado that we have is uh the extended battery unit, and um it's got a 170 kilowatt hour battery, and so uh usually range when that truck's fully charged is is uh you know well over 350 miles worth of range.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think you know, really what we were doing was looking to see like, well, how much uh how much power did it use and how many days or how many hours will we be able to power that truck and stuff?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so we'll be able to kind of share that information in the screenshot.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so yeah, I'm looking back here now, I'm looking through some photos that I took.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: I was so excited I was taking photos and videos of all this, and we'll share some of it with the podcast.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Two hours and 28 minutes is what we were plugged in.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: The range used off the truck or mileage equivalent would have been 17 miles, so we really didn't use that much.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Total energy used 1.8 or sorry, let me correct myself.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Total energy used was eight point four kilowatt hours of that 170 kilowatt hour pack.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, and uh when we originally started the truck um was at 91% charge, and that's a little higher than we usually keep it, and I think it used three percent of the battery during that two and a half hours.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's not bad for two and a half hours.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Not at all, not at all.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've I've I've told the story of a few folks, and even the electrician and the linemen from the co-op were they like, you gotta call us and tell us how this worked and everything and stuff.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, I've shared this information with them, and you know, both of them asked, well, what are you gonna do when your truck battery gets low or or you know, use all that up?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I'm gonna go into town and recharge the truck and come back.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's no different than going getting some fuel for it and stuff.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so, anyways, you know, I just got pretty excited about this whole generalink situation, and and we had it installed, and then literally within a week we had a power outage uh here.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: This summer we've had more power outages than than we ever have as far as throughout the summer.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the the co-op has been talking about how they have their system set up as a one-trip, meaning that it's part of their fire litigation plan.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the system, the power grid does not reset uh once it's tripped.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: So if anything at all causes the system to trip, they have to come out with their crews, inspect, make sure everything's safe before they restart, and it's just part of the utilities plan in order not to have, you know, trying to reduce any sort of fire risk or anything like that.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: But um makes sense.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, so we're having longer outages.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's not off for five minutes and then it restarts, it's off for several hours.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: And this summer, that's what we've experienced.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: We've had a number of outages that are three, four, five hours in duration uh of time and everything.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so we know we need to figure out what we can do here to provide some backup power uh for our system and stuff.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_02: So especially for thinking about longer term, because I mean that's arguably a shorter outage compared to what we're seeing in in other regions or even different times of the fire season.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for sure.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: And in even, you know, even I'd mentioned the fires we had this summer, and uh we were up helping some of the neighbors, you know, they actually had fire come through, come right around their house and their property and everything there.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, actually took a couple generators up there so we'd have some power because even just charging your phone.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, for sure.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, uh we were up there one night in particular, and we'd been without power up at the up at the neighbor's house for several hours, and people just trying to use their phones and stuff.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I had one of the um one of the smaller battery boxes and had a couple of cables plugged into it, and different people just plugging their phones in just so they could communicate, you know, people calling, checking on us, seeing if we need anything, um, you know, kind of coordinating our efforts and those types of things.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: So you just we get spoiled by you know being able to plug in anywhere and stuff.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so so, anyways, you know, we just wanted to really, you know, share this information on this generalink package that we uh were looking at.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: But I think you know, we're looking at several other uh you know, battery technologies.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think you know that'll cover some of the situations.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Backup batteries used to be that uh only only folks that had batteries at their home were usually off-grid using solar, kind of extended the time that they'd have power.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: But now uh for many reasons, you know, kind of going back to our virtual power plant uh podcast and other conversations we've had, you know, uh there's there's the battery technologies has grown so much.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so, Michael, I don't know, I know you've kind of been researching some of the batteries and the technology that's out there.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know if you want to talk about those a little bit.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's like you said, the space has definitely expanded.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like we used to be just your Tesla powerwalls, but now that as the technology is commercialized, costs have gone down substantially.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: Now there's a lot more competitors out there in that space, and they vary drastically in size.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh so your Tesla Powerwall three is 13 and a half kilowatt hours, so a little bit larger than what you used for your for your outage.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_02: But again, you also had an additional, what was that?
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: You said 200 kilowatt hours with the truck battery?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the Chevy Silverado I have is the extended battery, so it's 170 kilowatt hour.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just a massive, massive battery.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the the extended battery Chevy Silverado is the 200 kilowatt hour battery pack.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_02: So just for a comparison point, obviously vehicles are a lot larger than your residential batteries.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: But I mean, even some of the generac units, we're seeing those can be anywhere from nine to eighteen kilowatt hours.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, sig energy units, um, those are about 5.8, but a lot of these you can also stack and they're modular in design.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: So the sig energy ones, you can stack them up to about 54 kilowatt hours.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: So now you're getting a little bit closer uh to some of the EVs.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: Uh one of the ones that, oh, N phase is another one, uh, five kilowatt hours.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: So they they range substantially in size, but I think as we have more OEMs out there who are putting the technology in consumers' hands, it adds a little bit of consumer choice and the flexibility to um maybe price it out a little bit.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_02: Because as an example, uh power walls, the installed costs is gonna be anywhere from 12,000 to 15,000, whereas for a end phase unit, it's gonna be about three to four thousand.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_02: So there's uh uh quite a substantial cost delta there.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: But one of the units I'm really excited about that I was reading about lately is it's called Pila.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: And what it is is it's a modular battery that you can just plug in.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_02: So you don't need to have it installed, you don't need to work with an electrician, you can plug it into the outlet in your home.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: And it's 1.6 kilowatt hours, so smaller battery comparatively to 13 with a power wall, but it's modular, it's renter friendly.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: So um here in my place, I'm I'm renting, so I couldn't I'm not I'm not gonna install a power wall and be able to reap the the benefits from that, but I could get a Pila unit for about$1,500 and get that installed, and if I move, I can take it with me.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: So I think we're also seeing that accessibility factor um starting to be at play too from these different manufacturers.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I know, you know, kind of my my driver for the emergency or for battery technology and and bringing a battery in or if some sort of system is more resiliency, but you know, what are some of the other reasons that folks would bring a battery system into their house?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't have solar, so I know a lot of them are tied to solar, but you know, I mean, uh is when you're researching that, what do you find?
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what are some key drivers that make make this battery system economical?
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: For sure.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it's hard to put a price on resiliency, obviously.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_02: So that's uh definitely a um major important factor for folks.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um I mean, you don't want to lose all your food in your freezer, right?
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_02: And then in today's economy, that's hundreds of dollars.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, especially especially with beef prices the way they are today.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I said we had three freezers going and they're all they're all stuffed full, you know.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then anytime, you know, kind of, you know, kind of comically, you know, anytime you have a power outage or your freezer goes out, it's just it's just when you fill it up.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: You just you know, we just had uh some pigs butchered and processed and stuff, just went to Costco, you know, so the freezer's absolutely stuff full.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's that's when you lose power, or that's when the freezer goes out or someone leaves the door open or what have you.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: So that's pretty tangible.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but obviously I think a lot of folks are also looking at time of use rates now with utilities.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: And what that is is a utility is gonna pay you, excuse me, um, you're gonna pay a different price depending on the time of day.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: The consumer.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: The consumer, yeah.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: So as a customer, remember, maybe uh at peak time in the evening, I'll be paying a higher rate, whereas throughout the rest of the day, I'm paying a substantially lower rate than someone who's not on that time of use.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm just gonna throw some numbers out there um just to give a visualization.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_02: So if you've got a normal utility rate, say I'm paying five cents a kilowatt hour.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_02: That's uh not normal rate, not on a time of use.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: And that's all day, 24-7, right?
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: On a time of use rate, maybe at that peak time in the evening when everyone's you know, TV's running, they're running uh everything in the kitchen, lights are all on, AC, that's that peak time.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_02: So the utility is going to charge a variable price.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_02: So maybe it's let's say 30 uh cents a kilowatt hour during that time.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: And then during the rest of the day, it's maybe four cents a kilowatt hour.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: So it's a substantial increase during that peak time.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: But during the rest of the day, if you're able to shift your usage, you're paying pennies on the dollar comparatively to even a normal consumer paying that 10 cents.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_02: So with a battery, I can use that battery to shift my usage.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: So instead of having to use grid power in the evening with those prices, I can fill up the battery during uh those earlier cheap prices on the grid.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the office, exactly.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, and then discharge it during that peak time, and I'm saving myself a lot of money, even from the normal, the normal rate if I didn't have that time of use.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I know um, you know, kind of again, going back to the virtual power plant podcast that we did and the conversations we've had, you know, a lot of those utilities, uh one of the one of the products they were they were helping sponsor or part of their program was battery packs for residents.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we also see some of the programs actually uh in the commercial accounts uh doing battery, and sometimes I think a lot of those it really has to be tied to solar.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: So they're looking at that combination.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I don't know, I I would say at this point, it's probably still hard to make an economic case for it.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: I know with us, either our electric meters are usually either PUD or uh co-op and our our rates are flat.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it doesn't matter if I'm using the electricity at 4 p.m.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: or 4 a.m.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm paying the same rate, and so I don't have those that rate structure that kind of starts building into the economics.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: But um, I think with that being said, it you know, kind of what is the additional value for me?
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like your comment was how do you put a price on resiliency?
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'd in in these situations, you know, where we're out of power and there's dry lightning all around and we're in a kind of this extreme red flag situation with fire, it's worth quite a bit for me to have power here, have communication, have some water, you know, those types of things.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I think, you know, kind of in you know, moments of time, I think there's that you're you'd be willing to pay quite a bit, more than uh when you look at just you know the flat rate.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think our PUD rates are around six cents a kilowatt hour, and our co-op rates, uh, where the house is here is more close to 11 cents a kilowatt hour.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's pretty cheap electric rates, you know, in general and stuff.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, I don't know, what's your thoughts too?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think as we go forward and you know, kind of looking at some of the additional demand on the grid and stuff, I think um that might be something that becomes more complex, our electric rates, and and I think these time of use programs and demand response type programs are gonna be more popular.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: And I think my thought is the battery technology may have a uh uh more of an economics to it in the future versus right now, you know, I'm doing it for resiliency.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing it because we have the electric truck or the electric trucks actually out in the in the driveway oftentimes, and I know I can use them as a power source, and now I've got a method uh to do that.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: But I think you know, something else to touch on, you know, I had to have I talked about the electrician and the lineman from the co-op out here to install it.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh same's true with the Tesla Power Wall, it's not something you just plug in or plug through.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so there's a there's a cost for installation.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's the battery units plus installation.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but those Pila units you'd mentioned, I mean that that's kind of more like a UPS or a um, you know, kind of like these mobile suitcase style battery packs.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: And uh you didn't really talk about like how it works, but I I think it's like don't you just plug through it?
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: Why you plug the battery unit into an outlet?
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I know I've seen them like on refrigerators or Wi-Fi systems or those types of things, and then you plug your appliance or your whatever it is you're trying to power through this battery.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: So the power goes through it.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: And um almost like a power strip.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, kind of like a surge protector.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, kind of a power strip, and it's what'd you say the capacity?
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: One point one point six.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I think with those, the interesting thing too is you can have this like mesh network of them, so they're actually talking to each other.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um and if there is an outage, can't you go on?
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think I've seen on there you can actually go on and and turn specific appliances on or off, and it's got quite a bit of technology built into it.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: It does.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_02: And you can almost schedule stuff too.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_02: So if you know you have like you can maybe you could cycle your freezer or fridge as an example.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_02: So instead of having it powered the entire time, maybe you're running it for a little bit, cycling it off, running it back again.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: So it there's definitely a lot of flexibility with that.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I too I want to bring up the fact that to your point on the economics, we have some of the cheapest power in the country in this region.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's definitely something to kind of keep in mind because we're looking at other parts of the country that have substantially higher uh power rates where that time of use might be a lot more economical.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I know even for myself, I'm over on Pacific Power up in the gorge a little bit, and that's way higher than than the rates out here.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: So there's definitely, depending on your utility provider, um, it might make more economic sense.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, I think as the battery technology continues to grow.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and one of our one of our partners, business partners, told us a few years ago, like battery technology is where it's going to be.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, you know, he's right with that.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think uh we've seen costs come down and performance increase drastically.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: But I think, you know, kind of summarizing this whole conversation is there's a lot of different options out there, big and small, you know, and and it's not all doesn't all have to be hardwired in.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um I know we're involved with a couple other energy resiliency projects, and some of those are more of a commercial grade mobile battery pack to power facilities.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: And some of our conversations with more of the like the emergency response folks and that, they had interest in in you know, kind of the health care, home health care uh medical machines or medical units for people, and they had interest in like, hey, if if we have folks on an oxygen machine or or some sort of home medical machine, could they come here and plug in?
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: And that was their interest.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so even those Peele units would would probably at least cover a few hours of that, allow someone some time to make a decision on where they're gonna go.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: If they had a couple of them, they could probably take one out, get it, get it charged up and bring it back, and then kind of rotate them.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so it definitely gives you some options, you know, kind of same as I mentioned earlier with the Chevy pickup or the Ford Lightning.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: If we run the battery down, I'm gonna go find a charger where they do have power, you know, kind of in town, you might say, recharge it and then bring it back.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: And those those small battery packs, the same thing and stuff.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think all over we're seeing more and more of these battery packs.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh a lot of them are more common, but there's some some companies coming into the market that uh are definitely doing some good things, it appears anyways.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: I know we've been the looking at the SI Energy Unit, and one of the uh selling points they have is the vehicle 2X capabilities.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: So you can actually, you know, in this in the case that we're seeing with that unit, the SIG Energy unit is plugging your uh car in it to charge, and then it automatically goes bidirectional if you have it programmed to do so.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: And they've actually been able to work with several of the manufacturers, and uh, they've got a whole variety of different vehicles, electric vehicles, where they're able to do this bi-directional charging piece.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a few, I think it was about a month ago or something, Tesla.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: I seen they actually came out and said they're not gonna allow it, you know, and so I was a little bit surprised, but it's not uh Tesla system that's doing it.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think they like keeping it all in-house.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll see, we'll see where some of that lands.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: But I've seen them uh with the Rivians, I've seen them uh with the variety of different electric vehicles where you're plugging in.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're talking today a lot about the pickup trucks, but I think in the future there's actually going to be a big uh use for just in general, the average consumer that's got an electric vehicle of having a system where they're plugging in in their garage or what have you, and it's it could automatically switch.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: And they may not even know the power went out because if their car's plugged in.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, what's what's the value of that?
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: It adds that much more value to the car and stuff.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_02: So I was seeing that a lot down in California too in fire season down there and during some of their uh public safety power shutoffs, folks were using, yeah, like Chevy Equinoxes.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_02: So they're not massive battery capacity like the pickup trucks, yeah, but that's still enough to power to power your home when you need it.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um, it does bring up the the concept of that interoperability and how all these systems talk.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_02: And we saw the same challenge with virtual power plants.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_02: But I think as more um auto OEMs enter the market and different manufacturers of batteries, you still need to have kind of a standard to that.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's we're not quite there yet.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm I'm hoping that it's going to move that direction soon.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: So that way you could pull up with any vehicle and you could use use that vehicle for for your bi-directional charging at home.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_02: And same thing with your your battery units, and it's not so brand specific.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_02: Make it a little bit easier for the consumer.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and I I know there's a a couple of associations that are working on this very specifically, and they're trying to get a standard for the vehicle to X.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it's you know kind of similar to the original uh cell phone chargers.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody's got a different cord and connection.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same with the EV charger that came out, but they're really trying to get a a standard um communication protocol.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: And uh there's a lot behind the scenes that we don't understand and everything, but uh you know, hopefully I'm hoping that they get something in place for this vehicle to grid or vehicle to X standard to allow us to use uh use the the car's battery for emergency power.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I, you know, kind of sitting here thinking too, one of the things that I was thinking about is usually a warranty on a car is for how many miles or years.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's been talked about a little bit that the auto manufacturers may be you know thinking, and I'm I don't know any inside baseball or anything on this, but they may be thinking the fact of like, hey, you're using our vehicle that we're warrantying for a power source, and so you're cycling that battery that many more times, but doing that you're not necessarily racking up miles on the car or that.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think you know, those details need to be worked out.
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_00: I think that was the the something that was mixed into the uh kind of the Tesla publication about shutting off the vehicle to grid or vehicle to X, uh, you know, with this SIG Energy unit specifically, and it may be tied to the warranty.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you may void your warranty if you use the system type of thing.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we could get someone from SIG Energy on even to talk about that.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: That'd be that'd be fun to talk about that and stuff.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so, anyways, any any closing thoughts?
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think, you know, I just kind of we want to do an introduction uh around this technology.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's something that uh we're definitely interested in.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's and the fact that we've got this general link system installed and you know, we can use our 150 Lightning and maybe unofficially use the Chevy Silverado.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we only did it because we were in it in a you know time of emergency, you might say in fire season, and and we were, you know, kind of um the truck, the F-150 wasn't here, right, you know, type of thing.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: So um anything else you're thinking around this space?
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's just exciting.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_02: I've heard about vehicle to X uh for a number of years now, and I think it's really exciting to actually see it happening on the ground, and it's not just a concept that's kind of out there, it's functional.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: Mm-hmm.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um we'll put a link in the chat to the general link system.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they've got uh page specific to the Ford owners, and maybe we'll put some of these other battery units that we've been looking at and watching in there, and then hopefully in the near future, we'll actually get to test some of these other units out and we can do a little uh caption on that and stuff and and uh share some of our of our findings and how they help folks like us out in the rural areas uh when they run out of power and and uh you know, in the middle of summer with lightning all around you, you know.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: So with that, we'll just call this show to a close.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so thanks for listening to Rule E.