The damage wreaked by Storm Éowyn in January has caused many home and business owners to look at other sources of backup power for the next big storm.
The most popular choice is a petrol or diesel generator.
Both Government and opposition politicians have called for a supply of generators to be set up and ready for the next major weather event.
Others argue that it would be a poor investment and point to other options. Batteries either installed in the home or in an electric vehicle (EV) parked outside have many advantages but there is a high upfront cost.
Monaghan was among the counties hit hard by Éowyn and equipment supplier Monaghan Hire saw the calls come in before the storm hit.
At their Castleblayney store, Aiden Little said: “We did sell out. Our supplier sold out, so we did go to a supplier in the UK to get these generators, because the demand was there between our online customers and our local customers.”
People are still looking to buy generators and many have paid a deposit to secure one from the next delivery, expected in April or May.
He said a 6 kilovolt petrol generator would keep the essentials such as fridge freezer, heating, lighting and device charging going in most homes.
Some people are looking for bigger machines that would cost more to buy and run.
A 6kv generator is priced at €1,350 and would consume around 20 litres of fuel per day at a cost of €35 to €40.
Generators also need to be maintained. Mr Little said many people found that out when the storm hit.
He said: “We had about 150 generators in just to get fixed, because basically, they’ve been laying up in garages, fuel contaminated.
“So they’re coming in, let’s say, getting their carburetor cleaned out and we serviced up on 150 generators during and after the storm.
“He advises people use a fuel stabiliser to stop the ethanol in the petrol or diesel clogging up the engine. Manufacturers also recommend regular oil and filter changes for their machines.”
Batteries on wheels
Some EV owners found a new use for their vehicle during Storm Éowyn.
Donegal is no stranger to storms and when Éowyn hit, Gerry Grennan kept the essentials in his home overlooking Lough Swilly powered up by plugging them into his Kia Nero EV.
Like many electric vehicles, it has a power to load (P2L) capability, which means it can act as a power source.
An adaptor, supplied with the car, turns the charging port into a three pin socket.
Mr Grennan ran an extension lead from the car in through a window.
He said: “The first thing we did was we tried the kettle and that worked, and so we made a cup of tea. Okay, what do we do next? The freezer was the next thing on the agenda.
“So we started slowly plugging things in, and over the course of the day, we managed to save our food in the freezer, we had a bit of dinner with the air fryer, things like that. So it’s some form of normality, if you like.”
After three days, the car battery was down to 20% and Mr Grennan drove 15 minutes into Letterkenny to a public charging point.
A couple of hours later, it was back up to 90% and reconnected to the appliances at home.
That kept things going until the mains power came back two days later.
Mr Grennan said that when you include the cost of topping up the battery at public charger in Letterkenny, the electricity from his car over the five days came to a little over €50.
Not all EVs can act as a power source with information on the different makes and model available on the manufacturers’ websites.
Solar panel power
Not all batteries come on wheels. Some homeowners have installed batteries in their houses to store power from their rooftop solar panels or to charge it up at cheap night time tariffs to use the electricity during the day.
Outside Castleblaney, the O’Reilly family have solar panels and a battery at their home. They also have an island switch which means they can isolate the house from the grid.
That is needed to allow them to use the power from the solar panels or battery when the mains supply is down.
It is a safety measure to protect line workers who are trying to reconnect homes, without it they could be electrocuted by power coming back up the line from a house.
The O’Reillys were cut off by Storm Éowyn, intermittently, for several days.
Ciara O’Reilly said that when that happened their home system switched over to battery power automatically and seamlessly “everything was still able to run”.
She said: “As I said, everything’s off electricity, so our battery storage was able to provide our heating, our lighting, our water.
“We have our own well here, so we were still able to run our pump to run the water through the house. It was great.
“A lot of the neighbours around, they all had lost their electricity, had lost water, so we were able to actually help out a lot of people in the locality, and they were able to come up here to use the water, the showers, dinners, fill the tanks. So it was great. We were very lucky.”
Ciara’s husband, Conall O’Reilly, is a director of OHK Energy, the company which installed the system.
He is also a qualified electrician and connected a small generator to their system to top up the battery a few times. It helped it to cope with the many demands from the family and their neighbours.
Neither EVs or domestic backup batteries come cheap. The upfront cost is a multiple of what it takes to get set up with a generator.
A second hand EV with Vehicle to Load (V2L) capability would probably cost at least €10,000 and to get set up with solar panels and a battery in your home and the isolation switch to allow you to use it when the mains power is out would cost close to €8,000.
Seán O’Shea, a consultant with OHK Energy, said there is a substantial upfront cost, but it saves people money on their energy bills.
He said: “You’re buying a product or investing in a service for your home that is going to be identifying savings for up to 25 years, 30 years.”
Savings can be made by topping up the battery with cheap night rate electricity, or from solar panels during the day when people are out at work and school and using that stored energy when electricity is most expensive during the evening peak.
For those on more modest budgets, smaller mobile batteries are another option.
Customers at Monaghan Hire have also been buying power banks, which power several appliances and devices for up to 12 hours.
They can be recharged using a mains supply, by plugging into a car or in some cases they come with a solar panel.
Mr Little said they are a good solution for older people who may not want the hassle of a generator.
He said: “These ones, we have, have a 1,200 wattage, so we’ll charge a phone, keep a fridge going. And the other ones, the bigger ones that we have sold out of, they are 2000 watts of power.”
The smallest unit which has a capacity of 256Wh sells at €279 and as with generators, the bigger the unit, the bigger the price.
Environmental costs
A World Bank study on the use of petrol and diesel generators as a source of backup power in developing countries found that the “energy service they provide is valuable, but it comes at great financial, health and environmental costs”.
It said they are a significant source of particulate, sulphur dioxide, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide pollution.
It also noted that because they are used beside buildings they are providing power for there is a risk of poor air quality for users.
The National Emergency Coordination Committee has also warned that portable generators “can bring a fire risk and emit carbon monoxide (CO) – a poisonous, deadly gas”.
They should never be operated indoors.
While the electricity grid in Ireland is normally reliable, the use of thousands of petrol or diesel generators after a storm would increase carbon emissions and other air pollution and bring risks for users.
When it comes to batteries, Associate Professor of Engineering Education at the University of Limerick, Jason Power, said they not only save money, but also carbon emissions, because they can be charged at night when there is excess electricity and used during the day when demand peaks.
He said: “The more balanced the grid is, the less CO2 we emit per unit of electricity we create benefits, all of which are in the battery camp, but none of which are in the generator.
“So again, it’s all about long term investment and vision, if you want the environmental benefits, if you want to seamless transition to back up power, and if you want to be able to plug into other systems and save even normally, like solar.
“Yes, the battery will cost more, but it will save you money in the long run.”
Professor Power accepted that it would cost too much to set up all of the 768,000 customers cut off by Storm Éowyn with battery systems but said there are ways to target the investment
He said: “There’s a no cost energy upgrade scheme that already exists, and that is means tested.
“So to be a very good place to start by focusing on that group. You focus on people that might not be mobile, you focus on people that might have medical need and people who have economic need.
“I think that’s that’s the primary factor here, and also goes a long way to justifying the green transition, because for a lot of people in rural island Ireland, they might feel they’re being left behind by all these developments in public infrastructure and transport.
“Well, here’s a great opportunity to serve the people that need to be served the most, while also addressing this backup need and infrastructure need at the same time.
“So yes, it would cost more to start, but I think if we’re going to invest money anywhere, surely we should invest in the most vulnerable, the elderly and the isolated in rural Ireland.”
In Monaghan, many people are also inquiring about how to get an isolator switch in their home.
For many, it would be to allow them to connect a generator into their domestic circuit, for others it would allow them to use solar or battery power if the grid connection goes down.
At the moment, the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland does have grants to cover some of the cost of solar panels, but not for batteries or isolation switches.
In a response to a query from RTÉ News, Insurance Ireland said it was not aware of any insurance implication from the use of backup power sources.
Article Source – People look to new backup power sources after Storm Éowyn – RTE
