Backup Generators and load shedding?

Has anyone used some of the higher power Shelly relays?

I was looking at a tri fuel Champion 201438 ( Amazon.com : Champion Power Equipment 12,500-Watt Electric Start Tri Fuel Home Backup Portable Generator with Free 3-Year Warranty : Patio, Lawn & Garden ) genny to put in one of our out buildings, run a line to the main house.

*reason for tri fuel, if we get a week long ice storm and outages, it’s easier to ferry gas over to run it vs suck more propane and hope the propane truck can get down our very long dirt driveway in nasty conditions

We have primarily electrical heat and cooling via the heat pumps, but also have a large propane tank and backup forced air

UPS for the wifi/Pi/ HA stuff, and to also let the HA know if their is a outage, might need a ESP32 to trigger the start on the generator

Champion 50A auto ATS to switch over power

WiFi send the signal once the generator starts to power down the heat pumps and switch to our backup gas forced air furnace, I’d think the initial restart to commanded shutdown of heat pumps shouldn’t be too much for the generator or Mitsubishi heat pumps

Also triggers a relay to shut off our hot tub

Sends alert to users of power outage and load shedding

Has anyone done anything like this?

Any pointers?

Consider an automatic backup generator running off your propane tank. This is a superior setup as it works whether you are home or not. If you're concerned about propane tank size, get an additional one chained in or dedicated for the generator. I used to have a gas generator. Too much work, gas gums up and goes stale.

Get a kohler and you can use the Ha Rehlko integration I wrote.

Generator transfer switches support load shedding, so this is a built in feature. Typically there are also dry relay inputs / outputs to manipulate the load shed relays. These are an easy low voltage interface to a Shelly.

Toss a CT clamp on one leg of utility power and another CT clamp on the other leg after the transfer switch. This allow HA to verify if you are running off utility power or generator power.

I have this setup it two houses - works great.


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I’ll look into that, thanks!

I just need something that can ALSO run gas because we can heat the home with propane, we have a large tank suited for this, but with a prolonged outage like we had last year during the ice storms and <0f weather, I’d prefer to make a few runs to the gas station for the generator and let the critical home heat use to propane as that’s harder to get filled in bad weather.

I do think I’d start the system off on propane and shutdown and switch to gas if it’s looking like it’ll be a while before power comes back, if that makes sense