Home Standby Generators and Load Shedding Technology
As concerns about our electrical supply from the power grid during extreme weather events continues to grow with homeowners in the Denver-Boulder metro area, the installation of automatic, standby backup electrical generators in our area continues to grow.
In this post, we’ll take a quick look at the most common sizes of standby generators that our customers are selecting this year, and will introduce the concept of smart, “load shedding” technology, which allows you to prioritize the circuits in your home that receive backup power during an outage. Just as importantly, this smart technology prevents your standby generator from taking on too much electrical demand and shutting down at the most inopportune of times.
What is Load Shedding Technology?
Simply put, load shedding technology enables a generator to allocate backup power according to your priorities – cutting out lower-priority electrical circuits when total demand on the generator approaches levels that could put it at risk of failure due to overloading.
The benefits of automatic, load shedding generators include:
- Help ensure that your highest priority systems continue to operate during a power outage. Think of things such as your heating or cooling system, refrigerator and freezer, select lighting, or whatever happens to be at the top of your quality of home life list
- Your home will never attempt to draw more power than the generator can safely supply. Load shedding technology helps prevent a catastrophic failure of your generator due to overloading and overheating
- Makes a smaller, lower-wattage (spelled ‘less expensive’) generator a viable option. With ‘smart’ load shedding technology, you can closely limit the priorities of the generator to match only your most critical electrical circuits – without fear of your home’s electrical system overtaxing the unit, which in this case is not sized for the entire home
- When a larger size, whole-home standby generator is installed, load shedding technology provides you the option to take a conservative approach to the job your generator is asked to do – allowing you to be as frugal as you’d like, in terms of how much fuel (normally natural gas or propane) is consumed by your backup system. Or if you desire, in this case, you can adjust the smart controls to increase coverage to handle other areas and lower priorities in your home, as well – all within the automatic safety limits of what the generator can handle
A ‘smart,’ load management control is the key
A load management control module, the electronic brains of the operation, works in concert with the generator system’s transfer switch, whose primary job is to detect a power outage and automatically switch from utility company power to backup generator operation, and back again when power is restored. The smart management module (SMM is what Generac calls it) is the programmable and adjustable device that determines where the power produced by the generator is directed, according to your priorities, and is the key to load shedding technology.
How Load Shedding Affects What Size Generator You Should Choose
As mentioned above, load shedding technology allows you to safely employ a standby backup generator that isn’t sized for an entire home, and it also allows you to take a conservative approach to fuel consumption when you have a unit sized for the whole house. We find that, when budget allows, many of our customers prefer to size the generator to power nearly the entire home, but initially have our team set up the smart module to take a conservative fuel consumption approach, regardless of the capabilities of the system.
Choosing Your Generator Size
Kilowatts (kW) are the standard unit of measurement for generator sizing, indicating the power output rating of the unit.
The whole-home standby generators that our team most often installs are Generac brand units (our line of choice) with a power rating of 22kW, 24kW, or 26kW. These sizes are a good match for homes that have a 100-amp electrical service delivered by the power company, common with many of our customers. For homes with a 200-amp electrical service, generators with an output rating in the range of 30kW or higher are not unusual.
In the Boulder-Denver area, our electrical team at Save Home Heat works closely with our customers to determine the size generator that’s the best fit for their needs, their home, and their budget. We take the time to answer all homeowner questions patiently and thoroughly, and strongly support our customers after the installation has been completed.
Not just for the Denver-Boulder foothills!
Reiterating the introduction to this post, automatic standby home generators are now finding homes all around the Denver-Boulder metro area, not just up in the foothills or in outer-lying areas. An uptick in unforeseen (and planned) power outages are becoming a fact of life, and the growing number of new generator installations in a wide range of local areas reflect this reality.
Save Home Heat Company For Your Denver-Boulder Standby Generator & Electrical Needs
Whether your home electrical needs focus on adding an expertly sized, standby power generator, or any of a broad range of other electrical services, in the Boulder-Denver metro area you can rely on the experience and expertise of our staff Master Electrician and his highly skilled team of electricians. Please give us a call at Save Home Heat today for top level, friendly, professional electrical service. As always, any install quotes that are requested from our team are provided in a highly informative, low-pressure manner – and are free!
Please contact me to provide a quote for a new standby generator!
