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WARNING - DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS FOR INFORMATION ONLY When we decided to retire and move to Cyprus way back in 2006 I thought it would be a good idea to have some sort of standby electrical power generation capabilities available to us. I thought it unlikely that the Cypriot electricity supply company would be able to supply us with electricity to the same high standard that the UK supply industry had managed. So a standby generator was purchased. Just a little one, about 600 watts, from B&Q on a special "when they're gone they're gone" offer for about £85. It seemed to start easy enough and I used it on several radio related events including a maritime mobile operation out to the Cricket Stumps in the middle of the Solent. My thinking was to provide enough power for a few lights and to keep the fridge and freezer from thawing out all our foodstuffs during power cuts. Altering our plans to retire to France didn't really change the concept. The idea was still sound although I thought that the French power supply industry would be in the same "class" as the UK industry as far as supply reliability was concerned so I had the feeling the justification for spending £85 was now a bit weak. Ha! Got that one wrong. To be fair the French electrical supply industry do a fantastic job especially when you consider the size of the country. The population is about the same as the UK but it is spread out over an area about four or five times the size. A big area to supply with a reliable source of electricity. The total area covered is the biggest problem. Long runs of cable for the main grids, lots of transformers mounted on poles and long final distribution runs to properties mostly consisting of overhead cables and more often than not out in exposed areas of the countryside which can attract lightening and, it seems, trees as well! So, we do get quite a few outages. Mostly we suffer interruptions for a handful of seconds and I suspect this is due to work on the lines when they need to reconnect or add new services. On average we get about one of these a month although generally they come in bursts over a few days due to the maintenance work starting and finishing. HOWEVER, we do also suffer more severe cuts the longest to date being just over 24 hours. We have also had interruptions for several hours at a time but these only occur once or twice a year. The main point is, being out in the sticks, we can expect a storm, lightening, a tree or a farming/building/road works incident of some sort to damage a power cable somewhere along the line several times a year. Orange ( equivalent to BT in the UK) send emails to their customers warning them to disconnect their landline broadband modems prior to expected lightening storms. Broadband customers in France get through quite a lot of modems every year. I was confident I was prepared. After all, I had a standby generator. Yes! Wait until the first power cut. That's when you find out how prepared you are.....or not! Realistically it wasn't too bad. First I had to find the torch, then the generator and after I got that going I spent ages looking for extension leads with the right socket outlet types (French and or English) to enable me to hook up the freezer and fridge. By the time I'd achieved that I decided it was easier to light some candles for lighting! OK. Not so well prepared then but not too dismal. We had saved all our cold/frozen food but there was room for improvement. The little generator paid for itself in one go considering the cost of the food stuff we would of lost without it. The biggest time waster of the incident was finding the right length of cables with the correct plugs/sockets on each end and then getting behind the appliance to get to the mains lead so I could connect it to the generator. Wouldn't it be nice just to "switch over" from mains supply to generator supply? Yes but the only way to do that is to switch over the complete house and I've only got 600 watts. Maybe ok during the day but what about at night with all the lights on, the TV and computers on and what about the heating system pumps with their high starting surges? The little geny only just coped with the fridge and freezer motor surges. 600 watts for the whole house - not a chance. So I started to think about how I could achieve this. Our property is fed by a three phase supply which makes things a little more complicated. It's a very nice supply to have for my arc welder (400 volts) but I needed to isolate the incoming supply totally and then common up the three phase lines to run off of the generator single phase output. This took me back to the 1970's and the miners strikes when we had power cuts at work and had to provide a standby supply to keep things running. I opted for a 2kw single phase generator (2.7Kw peak) for about €350. Yep, made in China but you can't complain for that money. Starts 2nd pull and runs for 8 hours on a tank full of petrol. The hardest part was the switch over panel, details of which I have not included here for fear of anyone copying this project. A pictorial record of the project follows - after another disclaimer warning!!!This is a record of what I have done and is provided for information only. I cannot stress strongly enough - Do NOT copy or try to do this. The risks include:- sending power back up the supply line electrocution of electricity staff working on the supply lines connecting your generator to the main supply and trying to power the local neighbourhood connecting your generator to the incoming mains supply risk of explosion and fire EXCEPTIONALLY HIGH RISK TO YOUR HOUSE AND FAMILY -------------- DON'T DO IT! --------------
The objective was to further minimise the disruption caused by electrical power cuts. We did quite well before as all of the IT/comms equipment runs off of the 1000 amp/hour 12 volt battery system charged by wind generator /solar panels that I use to run the radio kit. Due to brown outs and spikes on the mains we also have the TV/satellite box and the satellite internet modem powered through UPS units along with any other sensitive electronic kit. So the main objective for this project was lighting, fridge/freezer (without any hassle) and, for the wife, the TV. In addition it will also run the heating pumps which will be nice during the winter. Added to our bottled gas cooking facilities we should be well prepared now??? Said that before didn't I? The last thing I would like to do is add a few emergency light units. Just a handful to enable us to safely walk around the house and easily locate the torches and get the generator started and switched over. FOR INFORMATION ONLY - DO NOT ATTEMPT TO DO THIS
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