If the Sun is Shining and You Have Solar, Why Doesn’t Your Home Continue to Have Power?
It’s a bright, sunny day, your solar panels are soaking up the rays, but the power goes out—and so does your solar system. This may seem counterintuitive, but there’s a good reason why your solar panels don’t energize your home during a grid outage. Let’s explore why this happens and how you can ensure energy independence when the grid goes down.
How Solar Systems Are Designed
Most residential solar is designed as a grid-tied system. This means your solar panels are connected to the local electrical grid, allowing you to draw power from the grid when your panels aren’t generating electricity (like at night), and feed excess energy back into the grid during sunny days.
Safety First: Protecting Utility Workers
When the power grid is running smoothly, this system allows for a seamless energy exchange. However, when the power goes out, your grid-tied solar system is designed with an automatic shutoff as a crucial safety feature.
When the grid goes down, utility workers are out in the field working to repair damaged lines. If your system continued to send power to the grid during an outage, it could pose a risk to the workers trying to fix the power lines. The automatic shutdown ensures that no power is flowing back into the grid, keeping the workers safe from unexpected electrical currents.
No Storage, No Power
Another reason your solar system shuts down is that grid-tied systems usually lack energy storage. Without a battery backup, your solar panels have nowhere to send the excess electricity they generate when the grid is offline. It’s like trying to pour water into a full glass. The excess energy from your panels simply has nowhere to go.
How to Keep Your Solar System Running During an Outage
If energy independence during an outage is a priority, adding certain batteries to your solar system is the solution. A battery with backup capabilities enables you to store excess energy generated during the day and use it when the grid is down or at night. There are many varieties of battery storage, but some systems can seamlessly switch to battery power when the grid goes down, ensuring your home stays powered if there’s enough energy stored in the battery.
The Bottom Line
If your solar panels don’t work during an outage, it’s not because they’re malfunctioning — it’s by design. Without a battery backup, your grid-tied system has no way to store or deliver power safely during a blackout. However, by investing in certain battery storage systems, you can gain energy independence and keep your lights on, even when the grid goes dark.