I am in no way an electrician or expert in any way but from your pics it appears that you could add the interlock at the top of you panel and move the first breaker to make room as you say. You should also just be able to turn your ac off at the breaker at the bottom. But…def get the advise from an electrician for your specific set up. My home is five years old and def. looks different than your panel. You could also buy a transfer switch panel that would only energize a fixed qty of your existing circuits without going the interlock route.
Appreciate your feedback and prompt response!!!
I have two panels in my house. The pic with the 150 amp breaker is on the outside of my house and shuts off all incoming electricity to the house. This is the panel I wired my generator input plug and interlock to. The generator breaker is just for the incoming generator feed. Basically a switch between grid power or gen fed power but the interlock only allows one or the other but not both.
The panel with all my breakers is inside the garage and is fed from the outside inlet box mentioned above. All those breakers pictured are my individual circuits for the house.
Your breaker box appears to combine both of my panel types into a single box with the main shut off breaker at the top. Should work just like mine but it is just single box rather than my two separate boxes. You also do have the option of using a six to twelve circuit generator transfer switch which would give you the option to power up only a fixed number of circuits. Some people or electricians like the transfer switch option better.
An interlock install is simpler, less costly and powers all circuits or none. It does take a little more thought to use though.
A transfer switch only allows the usage of specific designated circuits and is simpler yo operate. Plug in your cord and flip each transfer circuit switch to either gen source or grid source. You can also feed some circuits directly off of a sogen/solar and simply flip back to grid if the sogen battery runs down. Running a house fridge off of solar only would be a good example.
Thanks again. That answered my question regarding the pictures. Is there a transfer switch you would recommend? They are pricey!!!
I like Reliance Controls products. Home depot has a good selection on line. I would recommend getting one with as many circuits as you can afford.
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Sounds like a plan! Have a good one!
Hi Scott, I contacted a licensed electrician and he can install an interlock switch and a 50amp 220v socket for me but he said I would have to plug in a 220v generator for it otherwise it would not work. I have a sub panel inside the house which has a breaker for 220v AC. I do not need to turn on AC but can I plug in ac200 to the 220v socket outside and have it feed the power into the subpanel inside my house? I only need to use ac200 to power some of my 110v appliances and lights. TIA.
Tell you electrician that you can buy a cord (See Below) that bridges both 120 volt incoming wires to your house. By plugging in this cord to the ac200 you will have power to all the 120 volt circuits to your house with the setup you described. You do not need to have 220 volts going into your house with this cord but you will only be able to use the 120 volt circuits. You can still plug a 220 volt generator into the same socket at any time and also use 220 volt and all circuits
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Hi Scott, That is great to hear but I would like to confirm something with you. Most of my commonlt used appliances are fed by the subpanel I have inside the house. This subpanel is fed by a 220v breaker from the main panel. Thus I need to turn on this 220v breaker in the main panel when I plug in my ac200 to the 50amp socket next to the main panel. Would I be able to still get the 110v breakers power in my subpanel this way? TIA.
As I understand your setup, yes that should still work but check with your electrician to verify. The electrician should set up your input socket the same way he would if was installing it for a backup gas generator to connect to. He may need to install the input socket in a different position depending on each users setup. The good thing about the AC200 is that you can even install the input socket indoors if it makes sense to do so in a particular setup.
The adapter cable above is used simply to allow all your 120 volt circuits to receive power even though you are feeding them with a single 120 volt input. In actual use, you will also need to turn off the breakers from all 220 volt circuits in the home before you turn on the power from the AC200 or other source.
See the picture of my main panel attached. The breaker slots 17 and 19 are for my subpanel which needs 240v. Thus I will have to flip on this 240v breaker when I plug in ac200. Will my subpanel still get the power to power my 110v appliances? Thanks
I think so, but…I am not an expert.
Thanks Scott. You are right that with the adapter you showed, it should just work.
Well, finally got my setup up and running! Electricians were here today and we tested it out. Works like a charm, ready for the next power outage!! Not the best picture but hopefully you can see the transfer switch on the right with the 2 pigtails, one which is connected to the Bluetti.
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Pretty cool. That is one of my fav things about the AC200. It can connect to your home circuits
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Outstanding! Wish our building contract allowed this kind of setup.
Yeah, I’m pretty happy with the setup. They actually put 2 pigtails on and said I could connect both of my Bluetti’s (I have an AC200 and a 200P) if needed.
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That looks like exactly what I want to do. It would be a lot nicer than having extension cords running everywhere. One question. Can you just turn off grid to 1 or 2 rooms now? I wouldn’t mind being able to use my 200P to save a few bucks on our power bill.
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You could do that, but you would need to install a multiple circuit transfer switch. For example if you had a 12 circuit transfer switch, you would connect those 12 circuits to 12 circuits in your breaker panel that you chose. If one of those circuits supplied the refrigerator and another supplied your TV, you could switch just those two circuits to the “AC200” supply feed simply bu placing that transfer switch circuit in the “generator” position. There are three positions for each transfer switch. Generator / Off / Main Power. Selecting the source is a simple as moving the switch to the desired setting.