Generally with a solar power system you have a battery bank. Any solar you collect can be banked in those batteries, and you can use the power off of that to operate electrical appliances/gadgets.
If the grid went down because of something like an electromagnetic pulse or solar flare then it would not work, nor would anything else with a circuit board or curcuitry technology, because it would all be fried.
Almost 90% of solar systems installed at residences (homes) are grid-tied. This means there is no battery back-up for the system as the electricity is designed to flow into the grid. That grid-tie also has a safety measure which will not allow electricity to flow during power failures so that the grid is not harmed by surges, brownouts, or varying amperage and voltage levels from your solar array.
This means what your roof produces is not consumable by your home since it has no grid to flow to, and having no electrical grid will also means you have no power at home, regardless of solar panels.
Absolutely, as long as it is a stand alone solar system with a battery bank.
Many people live in remote locations without the convenience of city utilities and live completely off the grid. Many of these people install and utilize solar systems as their only source of electric power.
I agree that most of the solar systems in the area are on the grid and they have no battery backup. Battery systems are high maintenance and carry a certain amount of risk with them.
Since most of the systems out there do not utilize batteries, consequently, when the grid loses power your system will not function. This will only work on off grid systems and again, there just aren’t many of them around in populated areas.
For these times when you lose the grid, I highly recommend generator backup. Most homes are capable of running off of low wattage generators if set up properly. The cost of equipping your home with a generator is really not too costly.
All good answers so far. While it is possible to configure the design to utilize the panels during a drop in line power, do you really need it.? How often does the power go out in your area? The solution is either batteries, generators or electronics. All are expensive. If power is a must, consider the DC inverted generators. They’re great, simpler and less expensive than most of the other solutions. Assuming you’re in a net metering state, and it is a typical task, the best solution is to be grid tied. Use the grid as your maintenence free, never exhausted battery bank.
There are 2 types of solar systems so we need to look at both to answer the question:
Grid tied:
This system will still function during the day as long as the sun shines. At night the excess energy that was produced during the day (and is stored to the energy grid) is not actually the same energy that you use. The energy company gives a credit and at night you use theres. Hence in the event the grid is down, your system will not work at night.
Off-Grid
The system will work during the day or night. Batteries will store the excess energy that is produced during the day, however the batteries can only store so much energy and once it is used will no longer function if not assisted by grid-back up
best option is to have both. Small battery for outage, and tie to the grid to not use all your battery savings.
All the responds are good answers to the question, there are 2 types of solars systems, one have battery storage back up, but time limited on stormy weather. To get a longer desired power supply, best to have a generator that you can run & control.
A traditional Solar energy system will not produce power if the grid is down, this is to protect line workers from electricity being sent back and shocking them. If you were to have a battery backup installed with a solar energy system then you would be able to use your solar array when the grid is down as you would be a closed system charging your batteries instead of sending the power out.
