Could you use your mh leasure battery to run some of your house load. (1 Viewer)

[Cairngorm]

I did a search for an answer, but couldn’t find it. Is it possible that a leasure battery in your motorhome could be set up to run some of the load in the house, when electricity is expensive and then recharge the battery when the electricity is cheaper.

 

[MichaelT]

I did a search for an answer, but couldn’t find it. Is it possible that a leasure battery in your motorhome could be set up to run some of the load in the house, when electricity is expensive and then recharge the battery when the electricity is cheaper.

I guess if you have an inverter you could run an extension lead into the house and plug an appliance or 2 in then get your solar to top batteries up but thus time of year not much sun so limited I would think.

 

[Guigsy]

House power consumption is pretty high. My home 'idles' at about 200w with nothing of significance turned on. That would take a 100Ah lead acid battery down to its safe 'empty' point in about 2.5 hours. Turn on a TV and a couple of lights and it'll be less than an hour. Run a kettle and watch that plummet further.

House batteries are becoming popular. But they need to be much larger than a motorhome battery. Many are very similar to electric car sized lithium batteries. About the size of a fridge.

 

[Lenny HB]

Unless you have a massive Lithium battery bank in the van say 1000 ah it wouldn't be worth the bother.
With say an average 200ah of Lithium you would be able to use a max of 2kw. With our current economy seven rate you would save 86p but it would cost 50p to recharge at the cheap rate a saving of 36p. Then there would be the cost of setting it up and managing it.

Simplest way of managing it would be to have a set of sockets for the purpose in the house connected to a Victron Multiplus, if you don't already have a Multiplus in the van it's going to take years to recover the costs.

 

[Mikeco]

I don’t see how that would work out cheaper, the best way is to turn everything off in the house, lock it up and live in the van.

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[Ambilkate]

Hubby brought two solar panels and put them on our shed roof . He already had
3 large batteries he had brought second hand of a fellow funster so he has set up a similar set up that we have on our van.
It runs most of the Bt set up in bungalow . Plus daughters bedroom 12 v TV (which is on most of the day when we are not away in van ) and charges all her iPads /gadgets that she has . . Hubby's next project wil be looking into setting up the lights in daughters room to run of his system as well.
Kate

 

[Toady]

We had a power cut that lasted for three days. I kept the fridge running with the multiplus in the van and ran an extension lead into the house. I couldn’t leave it on continuously though.

 

[gus-lopez]

I believe vwalan back feeds the house from his 1kw of panels from his 5th wheeler roof.

 

[grasscutter]

The MH is parked outside our front door on the drive.
Whenever solar is good and batteries are topped up we boil the kettle out there for tea and coffee.
Every little helps.

 

[Lenny HB]

The MH is parked outside our front door on the drive.
Whenever solar is good and batteries are topped up we boil the kettle out there for tea and coffee.
Every little helps.

Ours is right outside but I don't think I could be bothered with that, but I might go back to using a kettle on the gas hob in the house.

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[SpeedyDux]

I bought a portable 1.5 KWh lithium gizmo "solar generator" that can provide up to 2KW at 230v for a limited time, in case of power cuts. Next step will be to add solar panels to recharge it in summer to power some of the stuff in my house and save on electric bills. Not sure yet how long the payback period might be. Possibly never. It does provide some feeling of security this winter, instead of prepping with candles.

 

[Just smiffy]

A few months ago I was bored one day and made up this little solar set up from a 9yr old agm battery that I kept in the shed for my air pump, a cheep panel and controller and it charges my phone, iPad and Bluetooth speakers every day and everything else that can charge from usb, it still manages to do it all in this weather we’re having. It might only save me £20 a year but it hasn’t really cost me anything plus I’ll get £20 from the scrappy when it doe’s finally die…

 

[Lenny HB]

A few months ago I was bored one day and made up this little solar set up from a 9yr old agm battery that I kept in the shed for my air pump, a cheep panel and controller and it charges my phone, iPad and Bluetooth speakers every day and everything else that can charge from usb, it still manages to do it all in this weather we’re having. It might only save me £20 a year but it hasn’t really cost me anything plus I’ll get £20 from the scrappy when it doe’s finally die…

View attachment 704880

9 Year old Banner AGM's still working! Must be fake.

 

[Just smiffy]

9 Year old Banner AGM's still working! Must be fake.

I have two Lenny as you might remember when I took these out of the hymer they were seven years old, I did think at the time that they were still good and I replaced unnecessary at the time but one of them was dragging the other down, the bad one is still in the shed and still able to work my 12v air pump but it doesn’t last as long as the one in the picture which I think is still good…

 

[Lenny HB]

I have two Lenny as you might remember when I took these out of the hymer they were seven years old, I did think at the time that they were still good and I replaced unnecessary at the time but one of them was dragging the other down, the bad one is still in the shed and still able to work my 12v air pump but it doesn’t last as long as the one in the picture which I think is still good…

Come on then test them and see how many amp hours they are good for.

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[autorouter]

I did a search for an answer, but couldn’t find it. Is it possible that a leasure battery in your motorhome could be set up to run some of the load in the house, when electricity is expensive and then recharge the battery when the electricity is cheaper.

That's my next project - not making much progress on it so far. It would need substantial leisure batteries to make it worthwhile, but a lot of MHs have these. Especially if they've been converted to lithium.

A 100Ah 12V battery stores about 100 x 12 = 1200Wh of energy, ie 1.2kWh. With standard lead-acid batteries it's recommended to only discharge down to about 50%, but other types like gel, AGM and Carbon can go down to about 20%.

A typical house battery is 5 to 15kWh, with 10kWh being a reasonable size for many houses. Some MHs have 400Ah, which is about 5kWh, and is a very useful contribution to the house supply.

You can also look at it from the other point of view - if you are looking to get a storage battery for the house, to store solar power or cheap rate electricity, then why not fit the batteries in the MH and have the benefit of them while you are on your travels?

As for hardware, the first thing needed is a bi-directional inverter charger, such as a Victron Multiplus. These come in various sizes and battery voltages. The Multiplus can talk well with the BMS of many battery brands, so check the compatibility list if you are buying new. Also needed is a controller, such as a Cerbo GX or a ColorControl GX.

The items not found in a MH are two current sensors, which are clipped round the house wiring. One measures the incoming/outgoing power to the electricity grid, the other measures the solar power being generated.

An App called ESS (Energy Storage System) runs on the controller. Based on the current sensors, and the state of the batteries, it diverts solar power to fill up the batteries, but doesn't charge using expensive grid power. It can also be set to charge the batteries at off-peak rates if you enter the relevant times. When a load is switched on, it supplies from solar or the batteries. If the batteries run out and there's no solar, it runs on power from the grid. There is an option to charge the batteries on expensive grid power, if you suspect there is likely to be a power cut in the near future.

In many installations the current sensors can be hard-wired to the controller or the Multiplus. It's also common to use wireless current sensors, with a transmitter at the measuring point and a receiver next to the controller. The wireless sensors would obviously be better if you are driving the MH away.

This setup is commonly used for house ESS. But it doesn't seem to be easy to switch off the ESS app and turn it into a standard MH setup for travelling. At the moment Victron recommend that you don't do this, so I'm looking for a suitable workaround.

 

[Bessy765]

We have 6 kW Of solar array mounted on our garage roof inclined at 10 degrees facing due south and unshaded. With a ‘Solax 3 kw inverter and 2 5.8 kWh Solax lithium batteries, solar gain today 8.2 kw.
on the van we have 700 watts of solar, a Victron 12/2000/80 inverter charger and 200 amps of lithium. Unfortunately we keep our van inn the garage that has the panels on the roof so the vans solar is under cover.
the monitoring system on the van uses about 8/10 watts an hour so periodically needs topping up. As the system can be remote monitored I can turn the inverter on and off from my phone. So if the van batteries need topping up this can be done and I have a smart plug in the van with a lead that runs to the house. Should there be a power cut I can use the van batteries to run the freezer and second fridge out in the utility room. So all bases covered. the house battery system is not fitted with the device that allows it to supply the house in the event of a cut but has a twin socket by the inverter that will supply power if required should any power cut last longer than a couple of hours the vans lead also suplies a socket by the central heating boiler so I can just swap the plug for the heating to run.

 

[Tombola]

400ah lithium in MH, 600 solar on the roof.
Ive put a "semi perm" 13a extension fed into the kitchen from the van for the frdige & micro wave etc. Works ok in the summer. Out of my inverter, though the van window and into the socket.

I was suprised to see that the huge fridge we have indoors, doesnt really draw much more than my MH fridge freezer.