V2L adapter

GDB2222

Having seen the vague possibility of power cuts due to the US-Iran war, I became interested in the idea of buying a V2L adapter for our MG S5. That's 60kWh of power sitting on the drive, and we could easily run an extension lead to power a few essentials.

So, a V2L adapter would be good as an insurance policy, but I don't want to spend a lot. They range in price from around £15 to £200. They all look much the same. So, how do I choose one that will work okay, but isn't unnecessarily expensive?

Here's one at the low end of the scale:

https://www.onbuy.com/gb/p/v2l-type-2-ev-discharge-adapter-for-vehicle-car-ch~p150268910/

Is it any good? Is there really a difference between the adapters for different cars? It all seems a bit of a mystery.

facade

I'd steer clear of ones like that that have a "multiplug" outlet.

They never, ever connect properly to a 13A plug.

I'd get one of the £35 ones off eBay that claim to work with MGs and have just a standard UK 3pin 13A socket on the end. You can get your money back if it won't work.

AFAIK there is just a direct through connection to the Live, neutral & earth pins and a 62 ohm resistor to wake up the socket and lock it in (pp line to earth) and another through a switch from CP line & earth to start the inverter. Once it starts it will stop if it can't sense a load, so you need a couple of lights on as well as your freezer or it will keep stopping when the freezer motor cuts out and you'll have to nip outside and press the button again.

There is usually a thermal cut out inside the adaptor- presumably it breaks the pp line if the socket is too hot.

So any one should work, it is the car that controls the conversion.

forgotmyname

Check the sellers, I advise people to avoid the market platforms for mains powered devices unless you know what
to check.

Many items shipped from China may come with the earth cables not connected. Sometimes the earth cables are fake
with no actual copper or aluminium wire in them. Sometimes the wiring is too thin to cope with the expected load and
it may contain aluminium wire not the more expensive copper.

I bought a laser engraver and that had earth wires screwed (loosely) to a piece of plastic so the device was not earthed
but I knew I was going to need to rewire it anyway and that was from a long standing seller on Amazon with good feedback.

Mildly_Miffed

"Having seen the vague possibility of power cuts due to the US-Iran war"

That's the point I'm going to stop you at…

Not going to happen.

* Hormuz is only about 20% of the world's supply of fossil fuels.
* Through the six months of better weather that we're entering, fossil typically provides less than between a third of the UK's electricity.
* This silliness is not going to last. Grown-ups will prevail soon.

The long-term implications for price and for other things like food supply, because of CO2 and fertilisers etc, are more serious than the risk of short-to-medium term power shortages.

The UK's power network has some screwed-up pricing, whereby the highest-cost input required to meet supply sets the price for all, even if it's only 1% of supply at 5x the price of the other 99%… That really needs to be sorted out, and sharpish.

GDB2222

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81967930#Comment_81967930

I agree that it’s fairly unlikely to happen, or even very unlikely. But, that’s the point of insurance. You insure your home against fire, even though the odds are very much against it actually catching fire. Attitude to risk is quite a personal thing.

Plus, different people carry different risks. If you have just a couple of loaves of bread and some frozen veggies in your freezer, your downside from a prolonged power outage is minimal. Someone else might have far more expensive stuff in the freezer.

facade

The UK's power network has some screwed-up pricing, whereby the highest-cost input required to meet supply sets the price for all, even if it's only 1% of supply at 5x the price of the other 99%… That really needs to be sorted out, and sharpish.

Apparently this works Really Well 😮 Common sense would suggest that there is no incentive to waste money building more wind & solar as there is a danger that there would be sufficient to fully meet our needs for longer, and reduce the profitability of the existing plant, as well as the new build.

I blame Privatisation. (Thanks again, Queen Thatch 😡 )

If electricity, gas & oil production were still run by the State we could fix all the energy prices for internal consumption, electricity & gas could be at (total cost to produce + network costs)/total consumption etc.

People keep saying that we should open more of "our own" oilfields. it won't make any difference as the oil would just be sold to the highest bidder, if we want it we'd have to pay the market price (or higher to get all those tankers to turn round). If it were State owned we could use as much as we want internally at a fair price, and then export a little when market prices go crazy high.

(And when they are crazy low we cut back production, import it and use up someone else's reserves 🤗)

Mildly_Miffed

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81968005#Comment_81968005

…and freezer contents insurance on the house insurance…

forgotmyname

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81968108#Comment_81968108

Artificial pricing. We produce it but instead of using it we sell it to someone else, they produce it and sell it to someone else and
then we end up buying it at an artificially inflated price as does most of the world. Only a few exceptions it seems.

GDB2222

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81968178#Comment_81968178

The freezer was just an example. Incidentally, Straits of Hormuz is closed again.

Herzlos

The UK power grid isn't currently consuming oil : https://grid.iamkate.com/

So there's no risk of that supply issue. Not to say there won't be power cuts, but to handle something like that properly you presumably need a connection into the consumer unit and not just a car to 13A socket.
It may be more versatile to just get a largish power bank with some 13A sockets on it, which is completely separate from the car. That'll be enough to recharge phones and some lights.