Don't Get Left In The Dark

If it seems like the power always goes out at the most inconvenient time, it's not just your imagination. Sweltering summer afternoons, when food spoils in hours, rainy evenings when you've already squeezed a mass of partygoers into your living room or winter storms that leave you most dependant on your heating systems are all times when blackouts are likely to occur. At best, the lights go out and the party ends abruptly. But at worst, food spoils, alarm systems don't work, furnaces and pumps fail and pipes burst or basements flood.

For local residents, there have traditionally been only two options to respond to a blackout - grin and bear it or install a generator. A new concept, however, has recently arrived on the scene - home-scale, battery-based, backup power systems. These systems use heavy-duty batteries to store electricity for use during a power outage.

A New York City-based company, Gaia Power Technologies, has been selling a battery-based backup power system, the PowerTower, throughout the New York metro area, and has recently introduced the product in the Hamptons. The PowerTower is a filing-cabinet-sized blue box that holds advanced power electronics and enough batteries to keep the critical circuits of a house running for 24 hours or more. Because batteries don't burn fossil fuels or make noise, these types of systems can be installed indoors and don't require a generator permit.

The nation's power grid is aging, even as our increasingly wired lifestyles are driving up demand. As utilities face pressure to switch to cleaner, renewable sources of energy, they also have to find ways to finance expensive infrastructure upgrades without resorting to drastic rate hikes. High-profile outages like the Northeast Blackout of 2003, or the Queens blackout last summer, are symptoms of the strain currently being placed on the grid. On Long Island, LIPA has been forced to turn to neighboring states for electricity to meet peak summer demand. There are no quick or easy solutions to these problems, and as a result, experts predict that outages will only continue to rise over the next decade or more.

The traditional solution offered for power outages is a generator, although it presents multiple disadvantages. Generators are noisy, produce polluting fumes which require regular maintenance and can damage sensitive electronic equipment such as stereos, microprocessors and plasma TVs with low-quality power. Often space constraints, the unavailability of fuel or local regulations rule out a generator installation entirely.

Battery-based backup power solves these problems. Unlike a generator, the PowerTower installs indoors, comes on instantaneously when the power goes out, and requires no maintenance beyond changing the batteries every seven to ten years.

A typical PowerTower costs between ten and twenty thousand dollars, fully installed. Installation takes about a day and involves an electrician. Generally, customers back up furnaces, refrigerators, sump or well pumps, alarms and lighting. Gaia offers several different PowerTower product lines to fit the homeowner's needs, each of which can also be customized in size and runtime. The PowerTower also fits into the trend towards greener, more energy-efficient homes.

For the greenest possible backup power solution, Gaia offers a special series of units that integrate with renewable energy sources such as solar and wind. State and federal incentives are fueling tremendous growth of residential installations of solar panels, but the typical solar system isn't wired to provide power during an outage. When hooked up to solar panels, the PowerTower automatically recharges when the sun is shining and then uses that stored power after the sun goes down.

With power outages here to stay, the time is coming when home battery backup will be as common in the house as the refrigerator.

For more information contact Gaia Power Technologies, (212) 732-5597 or visit www.gaiapowertechnologies.com.

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