Lower your power bill and add battery storage protection from power outages.
Until now, gridtie solar power systems operated only when utility power was available. When the grid went down, the electricity from your solar panels was not used. Now, specialized inverters from Outback Power enable your gridtied solar panels to charge a battery bank from which you can power your home.

How do these Grid-tie Systems with Battery Backup work?
When the grid is running properly, your home or business will use power generated from your solar panels or pull electricity from the grid. Any excess power generated over and above your needs go back to your utility company for credits on your power bill in areas where net-metering is available.

In the event of grid blackouts, these systems will switch to "off'-grid mode" drawing power stored in your battery bank to power your home AND using your solar panels to recharge your battery bank.

All Things Change....Including Motivations for Using Solar Power

There are some people who get into solar power because it is a good thing to do. It's good for the planet. The use of renewable energy sources reduces our dependence on expensive, polluting fossil fuels and will leave our grandchildren's children a healthier environment.

But most of us jump in for other reasons. An offgrid solar electric system can make it possible to build a house on affordable, undeveloped land without the astronomical cost of pulling in utility power. Urbanites already on utility power like adding gridtie solar because it lowers their electrical bill.

And then there are the pioneer spirited Americans who mainly want independence. They want independence from bank mortgages and from profit-making utility companies. They want independence from a grid-connected, debt-ridden culture that uses more than it needs and leaves large segments of the population in the dark.

But for all of us, once we live with solar power, whatever our initial motivations, we begin to see the beauty of the system. Solar panels, because they have no moving parts, rarely fail. They keep on producing, without polluting, for up to 40 years! The sun shines; you have free power. Our children grow up having an experiential understanding of power production and consumption.

We want more. We begin to want the rest of the package: independence and the satisfaction of knowing that when the grid goes down our homes are safely powered. This is why we hear back from our gridtie customers, asking about battery backup options and the potential for converting their gridtie systems to offgrid.

Gridtie Solar Power Users are Learning

Although there is an initial cost benefit with the lowering of the electrical bill, in the long run, that bill is never going to go away. And when sun goes away; you have to pay for grid power or use stored power.

Two factors are leading gridtie solar power users to search for ways to be independent of the grid:

1. When the grid goes down, so does the gridtied solar power system. All grid tied systems will shut off during a blackout because these systems are required by law to feature an automatic shut-off mechanism. These requirements are in place to protect utility workers working on a local line during a blackout. This is known as an Anti-Islanding requirement.
   
2. No matter how much electricity you produce and how well you live within your gridtied solar power system's capacity, the electric bill never goes to zero! The add-on's keep adding up.

Give us a call to learn more: 1 (800) 472-1142.