Tonight’s power failure reminded me of a scheme I thought of this afternoon. Having been recently reminded that nighttime power rates are dirt cheap, I have been considering building out a battery bank in the house that can power the home during the day (peak hours) and be recharged during the night. This might seem like a lot of effort to save a few bucks but it would have another role: the equipment would be used if and when we ever get solar panels put on the house. The battery bank could be used if we chose to go completely off-grid.

Near the end of our power outage I remembered the deep-cycle boat battery I’ve kept trickle-charging in the garage. Just to see what would happen, I plugged in my 300-watt square-wave inverter and then plugged in a lamp into that. The CFL bulb in the lamp flickered a few times at first but soon it was shining brightly. Moments later our power returned, but it was a good demonstration of powering the home on batteries.