We would really like to one day run our backup servers, and maybe even some of our principle services from our location in #Wānaka, #Otago.
In order to make this feasible we will need a reasonable amount of off grid storage to ensure we can keep everything up in a power cut.
Gwilym’s 2016 Nissan Leaf blew a cell (or at least looking at #LeafSpy that appears to be what happened) a few months ago. This has lead to a roller coaster ride of What Ifs and Why Nots.
The current thinking is this:
- The #NissanLeaf is a great car, awesome heat pump, nice to drive, rugged, with the only thing being wrong with it the battery. Replacing the battery makes sense if it’s less expensive than buying a more modern car to replace it.
- There are now 50 kwh/350km #CATL cell kits available for the Leaf, by purchasing one we solve our car problem and also contribute to Repair over Replace which we like.
- We will have close to 20kwh of spare old cells left over from the Leaf.
- It’s time we put some solar panels on our house anyway (Lloyd has them and I am jealous).
So the plan right now is to see if we can use the old Leaf battery cells to provide interim power in a new solar setup.
Questions we’re researching are:
- If we get a modern Solar Controller/Inverter like the SigenStor with V2L functionality could we use that to establish a standardized interface between the Solar system and the Battery.
- #Vivne, the company that sells the Leaf battery replacement kits, also offers a Kit to put the old cells into a battery configuration. Details are a bit scarce but it is a great idea, we could just use the chassis container that the Leaf has but a vertical configuration on wheels would be easier.
- There are some really clever people, The Infinite Monkey Lab, in #Raglan of all places who are building interfaces for end of use car batteries so they can deploy them at grid scale. Maybe their interfaces are usable in this context?
