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Prius Used To Power Home During Ice Storm Outage

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Dec 24, 2008 8:18 pm US/Eastern

Prius Used To Power Home During Ice Storm Outage

Reporting
Sera Congi
HARVARD, Mass. (WBZ) ― Christmas preparation is underway at the Sweeney home in Harvard, but the holiday feast was nearly lost when power was knocked out during the ice storm.

"I had just started to stock everything for Christmas… like a lot of people," said Mary Sweeney.

And that's when John Sweeney saved the day with his electrical engineering know-how. "This is an inverter… good for 1 kilowatt, so it kept the refrigerator and freezer running."

He tapped into the battery power of his Toyota Prius by connecting an inverter, which turned Prius power into house power. "Kept us up for three days," said John. "Eighty hours all together."

The same could be done with a regular car battery, but you'd have to keep the car idle and use a lot of gasoline. Over the three days, the Sweeney's only used five gallons of gas with the Prius. "We could have kept going a couple more days," said John.

And because the Prius only uses gas every 30 minutes to recharge its battery, they weren't worried about dangerous emissions.

Since the hybrid engine only uses only gas every half hour, there was less carbon monoxide emissions, but John says you still have to be careful and make sure the garage is well ventilated.

So thanks to John's inventive thinking, the freezer stocked with a holiday buffet stayed cold, and the family stayed warm.

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