Our system does that too, Alatar. No electricity from grid and our solar power generation shuts off.
Jude wrote: * | Fri 10 Jun , 2022 1:27 pm |
So, hypothetically, if your area had a power outage, would it affect you at all?
We've already had a couple of short outages. The power flickers and after a few seconds the generator kicks on and we have power again. When the power comes back on, the generator shuts down. However, since we are running off a tank of propane, that would only last us a week with judicious use. I'm thinking we'll have to turn the whole system off for most of the day for extended outages to save on propane.
So, really... we have two separate systems going. Solar energy to drop our electricity bill and propane generator for power outages.
The way the grid tied solar energy works is that we have two meters on our house. One for the electricity we use and the other for the electricity we generate. Every month, we get a statement. Any electricity we produced but did not use gets credited to us for later use. But since they pay us wholesale rates and sell it back to us at retail rates, it doesn't pay to overproduce on the electricity.
As our gas powered small engine tools (lawn mowers, chainsaws, weedeaters etc) die, we've been replacing them with electric models. Recharging them with power we are generating on our system makes a lot of sense to me.