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Getting your power ready before a cyclone arrives

Cyclones bring down lines, block roads and keep repair crews away for days. The time to sort your power is the week the warning goes out, not the night the wind arrives.

Why cyclone outages run long

A cyclone does damage across a whole region at once. Poles snap on ridgelines, slips take out access roads, and crews have to clear hospitals and water plants before they reach rural lines. After Cyclone Gabrielle in February 2023, parts of the North Island were without grid power and road access for an extended period. A plan built around a few hours of backup does not cover that kind of event.

What it would keep running

  • Chest freezer of storm-season meat
  • Fibre modem and router for warnings
  • Water pump for the header tank
  • Phone and radio chargers
  • LED lighting through the night

The week before landfall

Once a cyclone is tracking towards you, top everything up. A hydrogen system is designed to fill its buffer from cheap night-rate power, so a few nights of normal charging before landfall means you start the outage with full storage and a full battery. Check the leak sensors report clear, make sure the enclosure door is latched and the vent outlet is not blocked by stacked outdoor furniture you have moved out of the wind.

Tie down or bring in anything that could become a missile near the equipment, such as trampolines, loose sheets of iron, wheelie bins and garden furniture. Clear the gutters above the enclosure so runoff does not pool around its base, and check the drainage path away from it is not blocked by leaves or a downed branch from the last blow.

How it works →
The H2OME loop: an electrolyser splits water into hydrogen, the hydrogen is stored in a tank for weeks, a fuel cell turns it into electricity for your home, and the water returns to the loop.

When the lines come down

The battery and hybrid inverter run in UPS mode, so when the grid drops the house carries on without the freezer, modem or pump resetting. The fuel cell then starts drawing on stored hydrogen to keep the battery up. There is no fuel run to make on a flooded road. Keep heavy loads like the oven and dryer to a minimum, because every kilowatt hour you use comes out of a store that will not refill until the grid or your wind turbine or micro-hydro comes back.

Questions

Should I shut the system down when a cyclone hits?

No, it is designed to keep running through an outage and shut itself down automatically if a leak sensor trips. Follow official civil defence advice first, though. If you are told to evacuate, leave, and do not stay behind to look after any equipment, including this one.

Can wind charge it during the cyclone?

Probably not usefully. Domestic wind turbines brake or furl themselves in storm-force gusts to protect the blades, so expect little or no charging at the height of the storm. Wind charging becomes useful again once gusts settle back into the turbine's normal working range.

How do I know storage is full before landfall?

The system is designed to report its battery level and hydrogen buffer level on its own display. Check both the day before the forecast landfall. If either is low, cut back non-essential use that night so the night-rate charge goes into storage rather than straight into the house.

More in outages, weather and how it works

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