I was going an buy a generator for emergencies but came across this article about what a fella did to his Toyota Prius (which I also have) and decided to investigate this conversion
"December 23, 2008, 9:58 am
Prius: It’s Not Just a Car, It’s an Emergency Generator
By Kate Galbraith
Which would you rather have in a winter emergency? (Photos: Toyota (top); Daniel Steger/OpenPhoto.net)
The Prius has a new use, and it does not involve driving. The Harvard Press — which serves the Massachusetts town of Harvard as opposed to the university — reported that the car’s battery helped keep the lights on for some locals during the recent ice storms.
The newspaper reports that John Sweeney, a resident who lost power, “ran his refrigerator, freezer, TV, woodstove fan and several lights through his Prius, for three days, on roughly five gallons of gas.”
Said Mr. Sweeney, in an e-mail message to The Press: “When it looked like we were going to be without power for awhile, I dug out an inverter (which takes 12v DC and creates 120v AC from it) and wired it into our Prius.”
According to the newspaper, “the device allowed the engine to run every half hour, automatically charging the car battery and indirectly supplying the required power.” (The Times reported on a similar venture last year.)
In fact, this development, which comes at a tough time for Toyota, which makes the Prius, may not be as strange as it sounds. Mr. Sweeney’s tinkering is along the lines of the “smart grid” technology that many utility executives and other experts say lies in our future. The idea is that the battery of an electric car — a plug-in, in most smart-grid scenarios — can feed power to the electricity grid when the grid needs it.
Even President-elect Barack Obama has endorsed this idea, as seen toward the end of this YouTube clip in which he said: “We’re going to have to have a smart grid if we want to use plug-in hybrids — then we want to be able to have ordinary consumers sell back the electricity that’s generated.”
Mr. Sweeney, out of necessity, got there first.
Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company Privacy Policy NYTimes.com 620 Eighth Avenue New York, NY 10018 "http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/23/prius-its-not-just-a-car-its-an-emergency-generator/Found a conversion website
"How to Use a Toyota Prius As a Backup Generator
When properly set up, a hybrid vehicle like a Toyota Prius can double as a backup generator. So, the next time the lights go out, here's how to let the mini power plant in your garage drive your appliances for a few days.
Go under the hatch. Locate the batteries under the mat beneath the car's rear hatch.
Attach a 2-foot-long, heavy-gauge cable to the relay terminals on the hybrid's (larger) "traction" battery. Affix a heavy-duty, 75-amp, plug-style connector to the other end.
Build a new circuit box. Wire the stuff in your home that you can't live without, like your fridge, magic bullet and PlayStation, to a separate breaker box. In an emergency, you don't want to guess which breakers should be on or off, and the Prius battery isn't strong enough to power everything in a McMansion. Installation requires cutting drywall, mounting the box, rerouting some wires, and running out a 230-volt plug to power the new breaker box. Consider hiring an electrician.
Connect the car to the house. Purchase a commercial-strength uninterruptible power supply (UPS).
Insert the new circuit box's 230-volt plug into the UPS, and power the UPS by plugging its own 230-volt plug into a clothes-dryer-style home outlet. Run positive and negative wires from the UPS battery to two heavy-duty diodes; do the same with another wire running between the diodes and a 175-amp plug that connects to the Prius' plug. (The diodes keep electricity from flowing from your house to the Prius.) The UPS is in the loop to help convert the Prius' 210- to 240-volt DC power into a home's AC power.
If the grid goes down, connect the plugs, fire up the Prius, and feel the power. "
