I've searched through most of the forum and I see there a bunch of you smart folks out there who have successfully got the HIS running and their trucks powering the homes, but I'm still scratching my head. I've looked through all the SunRun SOPs that Ford now links to, and sadly when we built our house, we didn't run conduit for the DC and Cat-6 wires. Before I dive in and tear holes in my walls, I have a few "dummy" questions on these wiring diagrams. (To be clear, I will have a electrician do this, but I just like knowing what's what.)

From what I can tell in manuals and wiring diagrams, in addition to the 100A wire from my breaker box for the charger (which is working fine), I need an 8 AWG 600V DC wire run and a Cat-6. There also appears to be a 14 AWG pair that runs to the EVSE that acts as a trigger to the charger somehow. What I don't know is what wires are powering my house when the power goes out.

My understanding is that the round portion of the charger head on the Charger Pro is AC and the bottom oval is DC for fast charging. At first I assumed that somehow the truck/charger converts the battery power to AC and feeds 120V back into the breaker panel (through the 100A breaker) onto the bus, but that doesn't sound right. The 8 AWG wire goes into an inverter which would convert DC to AC for the house, but is the whole house really being powered by an 8 AWG DC wire??? Based on a quick lookup on AWG - American Wire Gauge Current Ratings, a single core wire would only be able to supply 75 Amps, which at 600V would 45kw DC (right?). Is that what's really happening here?

The way the marketing material is presented, it makes it sound like I could run my "whole house" for three days. Realistically all I want to run is a refrigerator, my water pump, the boiler, network and computer gear, and maybe a freezer. According to our utilities folks, our average daily usage is 34 kwh so we should be good. I'd feel much better thinking that heavy, thick cord from the truck into the charger was going "straight" into the breaker box, but that puny 8 AWG wire? You run speakers with that! 😂

Smart folk, fill me and anyone else that might have similar questions in. Thanks in advance.

Did you purchase the home integration kit yet? It's about $4000 from Sunrun.

The DC wires you reference are 8 Ga but carry 400V DC, so really only 25-30 amps at max load of 9.6 kW. This is wired to your bi-directional inverter, which then converts this to 240VAC to back-feed into your panel. You also need to install the Microgrid interconnection device between your service and back-up panel (or main panel) to disconnect from grid when running on back-up power, this is essentially a transfer switch. a typical install would involve installing the HIS near your charge station pro, and cat 6 betwen charge station pro and HIS and then between HIS and MID.

If you haven't purchased the HIS kit yet, I'd consider getting a more traditional transfer switch for generator back-up, with a receptacle to take a cord from your pro power on board. This will cost more like $600-800 for hardware, require less wiring, and be more flexible if you wanted to use a gas generator, etc. in the future. Only hiccup there is the truck's bonded neutral, although many of the generators have this also, and the transfer kits can be found with a switched neutral to alleviate this.

If you want to add PV to your house, or separate battery back-up, the HIS is a good way to coordinate all of this, as it can all tie directly into the HIS with a single connection to your panel.

Hopefully that helps.

 

Only hiccup there is the truck's bonded neutral, although many of the generators have this also, and the transfer kits can be found with a switched neutral to alleviate this.

Obtaining a switched neutral transfer panel seems to be a tall order. Hard to find.

 

Thanks! No, haven’t pulled the trigger yet. The other challenge is that SunRun doesn’t service us up here in the hills. Got the local electrician to install the charger easy enough. I’ll look into that other option since I won’t be doing solar or batteries.

It still amazes me that the cables coming into my home for my 200A service are thicker than my thumb, yet I’m expected to believe that juice from my truck battery coming out over that heavy duty charger cable squeezes down to a wire thinner than half my pinkie and it can still power the house. Amazing!

Does make me wonder though, what would be a “safe” maximum distance for that DC wire from the charger to the inverter? I didn’t really see that called out in the SOP. I’ve got quite a haul to the spot I was thinking…

 

Thanks! No, haven’t pulled the trigger yet. The other challenge is that SunRun doesn’t service us up here in the hills. Got the local electrician to install the charger easy enough. I’ll look into that other option since I won’t be doing solar or batteries.

It still amazes me that the cables coming into my home for my 200A service are thicker than my thumb, yet I’m expected to believe that juice from my truck battery coming out over that heavy duty charger cable squeezes down to a wire thinner than half my pinkie and it can still power the house. Amazing!

Does make me wonder though, what would be a “safe” maximum distance for that DC wire from the charger to the inverter? I didn’t really see that called out in the SOP. I’ve got quite a haul to the spot I was thinking…

A few things:
Many utilities started installing 250 kcmil cable for everything because it's easier for them to keep a single roll than several different panel sizes, so it may be oversizede anyway.
They also have to have wire rated to carry that 200A continuously, even though most homes rarely come close to that. Your truck output is 9.6 kW max, or 40 Amps, so only 20% of what that service wire is needing to handle.

As long as you put the DC cabling in conduit, you should be ok for a bit of distance, but I still think you'd be better off putting the inverter near the charge station and running your 6 gauge wire to your panel from there.

And with no plans for solar or batteries, I'd really encourage you to go the other way. You might search threads on here for bonded neutral or pro power onboard, it gives you much more flexibility, and with your usage probably won't make much difference.

I have the whole back-up kit installed, with solar, and I definitely wouldn't say it's seamless. If i hadn't been tying solar into this inverter at the same time I did everything else, it certainly wouldn't have been worth it.

 

* one more consideration, with Ford going to NACS in a year and a half, and many of the other manufacturers of EVSE's, etc, V2H systems may look a lot different in a year or two, might also be worth sitting tight for a year or two, you can always run a few extension cords to your truck in a pinch.

 

Very good advice from KElkhorn. I have the HIS installed at my home with a 20 kw solar system as well. I was in the process of acquiring materials for my solar install when the HIS became available, I was going to need to buy a 10 kw inverter which would have cost me at least $2500, and so I went ahead and invested in the HIS since it also provided me with the 10 kw inverter. However, my bro in law next door also has a lightning and he installed the generator transfer switch and uses his pro power onboard to back up his house. He did his install for just a few hundred dollars and has a flexible installation that with carefully switching on and off breakers, he has more of his house backed up than I do in my “loads panel”. So without solar or batteries being installed as well, not to mention the transition to an alternative connector coming with upcoming vehicles, I would highly recommend not installing the HIS and saving a lot of cash by taking KEiKhorn’s advice with the generator transfer switch.

 

I was able to get my HIS working finally and it is nice. I was able to run all my key breakers and down here in FL my air-conditioning also... some issues to watch out for:
The programing was a bear... I'm in tech and have a programing background.. I was helping the Sunrun electricians along the way - granted we were all new at this in January
You have to be real close to the Ford power station or things don't work. In a garage near the passenger side of the truck fine, on an outside wall and 10 feet away the Bluetooth fails to connect and then it fails to switch over
Like wise the Ford powers Tatiana still won't communicate with the app so while the truck switches over I have no monitoring capability

I still think my Ford power station has a problem as it will lock up and fail to communicate on anything let alone the HIS portion of the app and I have to take the cover off and pull the power to reset to reestablish communications... of course Sunrun says that's a Ford problem and I haven't called them yet on that...

In summary, the system is cool when working, the setup is a challenge and for my other place I'm just going to put in a generator connection.

 

You have to be real close to the Ford power station or things don't work. In a garage near the passenger side of the truck fine, on an outside wall and 10 feet away the Bluetooth fails to connect and then it fails to switch over

Because why wouldn't you put the HIS/CSP on the opposite side of the truck from the charge port. . . . rather than next to the charge port so you don't have to wind/unwind the cord all the time. . . .

 

Supposedly the antenna for the Bluetooth and wifi is near or under the right rear passenger seat... I have my charger mounted on the outside wall, garage is 1 inch to short even with wall mods...

 

There are some other options, such as not connecting ground between truck and transfer panel (truck ground is bonded to neutral, house is still grounded to ground, grounds just aren't connected to each other)