I only have one grid connected where do I get a second?

p_l a day ago | parent | next [-]

I fully agree on the snark, but if anyone seriously considers backup from grid...

Get an islanding-capable inverter separating your internal power setup from grid, connect it with battery systems - you can control battery charging and have "microgrid UPS" then. Combine it with solar power feeding as second feed into inverter. Scale battery and solar panels as needed. If you have third input, can add three-phase genset (I recommend looking for propane fueled one if you don't want to care about fuel going bad)

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polarsanel a day ago | parent [-]

I have this pretty much and generating way too much power for our needs which is great. And that includes car charging for light but significant use. I export a lot during peak hours from the battery as there is a lot of surplus.

But I was snarking on "provider". There are 100s of providers where I live but one grid and you can't use two concurrently.

My backup in the past has been a local library for internet and laptop power and everything else can wait.

	▲	jon-wood a day ago \| parent [-]
		This is all getting quite silly but really large sites with critical power needs (hospitals, factories, data centres, etc) will sometimes have two independent grid supplies running in from separate substations, preferably going as far back down the chain as possible before hitting a single point of failure. They'll also have UPS and diesel generators able to kick in and keep things running if somehow they entirely lose grid power. Its all totally doable, but as you say for most people going to the local library or a coffee shop is a perfectly fine fallback plan.

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ben_w a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That's what a UPS and a backup generator were for, even before PV and industrial-scale batteries became a thing.

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formerly_proven a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Large consumers often have two independent grid feeds.

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UqWBcuFx6NV4r a day ago | parent | next [-]

OK. I’m not a large consumer.

	▲	amenghra a day ago \| parent [-]
		If you were to setup a GPU cluster in your basement and consume TWs of power, the grid going down would no longer be your problem. It would become their problem! /s

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pjc50 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

.. to the same grid. If you're lucky they're to different substations.

The number of people who had "independent" fiber connections which were routed through the same channel and destroyed by the same backhoe is so high it's a meme among sysadmins.

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cowlevel a day ago | parent [-]

The problem with trying to have two grids is that if anyone ever connects them together, now they're one grid with a weak link in it.

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pjc50 a day ago | parent [-]

See Japan (2) and the US (3).

DC links are now feasible for these situations, and don't have certain failure properties of AC grids (synchronization/frequency/phase).

	▲	cowlevel a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Now they're one grid with a controllable weak link. They might solve the all-or-nothing interconnection problem of AC grids, but they can still cascade failures - and they will, if one goes down and everyone switches to the other.
	▲	formerly_proven 18 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		The two Japanese systems have 130+ GW of generating capacity each and the links between them have a total capacity of about 2 GW (<1%).

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larodi a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Do you disambiguate between failure of the grid and failure of the usine? Like failure of the power generator is not the same as cut wires. And in terms of AI and internet providers - both can be easily diversified.

Besides, what is it that you guys expect from a large scale provider of essentially experimental technology being tuned live as it goes? Is amazing this all works so good considering the complexity underneath.