You are viewing a single thread.
View all comments View context
13 points
*

At work, I have a freezer with a couple thousand dollars of product in it. If I lost power and only had male plugs to jerryrig the generator into the circuit, I would. BUT only after turning the mains off and padlocking the panel shut. I didn’t have to do that as I just wired the generator directly to the freezer after disconnecting it from the mains.

permalink
report
parent
reply
12 points

Wait, an electrical outlet can be an inlet too?

permalink
report
parent
reply
19 points

Mains outlets aren’t smart, they’re just wiring with contact points. If you feed power into an outlet, it’ll energize the circuit it’s on, which is a bad idea if your mains circuit breaker isn’t off.

permalink
report
parent
reply
15 points

Technicaly it is connected through the breaker so you could only supply as much to the rest of the house as that breaker can pass. Not ideal or the proper way of doing it though. Also the reason to disconnect from the grid is that you could start feeding downed power lines, and if line workers go out to work on the lines they can be electrocuted. Also, theres no telling when power will return. There should be a separete input for the generator and a transfer switch to switch between the generator and grid.

permalink
report
parent
reply
10 points

There’s a reason why home battery storage systems needs to be connected to the breaker panel. You route power through it. When the batteries aren’t needed then it’s just a dumb relay for grid power. When you’re drawing power from batteries it disconnects the grid.

Only a few industries ever draw power both from grid and local power sources at once (during peak load) and they route all the power sources through a power distribution system which prevents backfeeding.

permalink
report
parent
reply
13 points

Yes. It’s called backfeeding I believe.

permalink
report
parent
reply
8 points
*

Any outlet can be an inlet if you are daring enough (don’t do it with water mains though)

permalink
report
parent
reply