Back up home battery systems? Generators? Solar panels?

[idahopz]

Being rural and in the forest our power goes out many times per year. About 10 years ago a friend loaned me a Champion generator because our two fridges and top load freezer were full of food. It worked, but you could easily see the single light we had on would wax and wane quite often - we did not dare attach our sensitive electronics. The next time our power went out I was busy outside getting firewood ready for the cold nights when I saw a pickup coming up the road with a Honda generator in it. I wanted it so bad at that moment I did not even notice that it was my truck! Evidently my wife had had enough of power outages so she went to the local Honda store and had the guys load a 7000i into the truck.

It is an amazing unit and because it is an inverter generator the power is perfectly smooth. We now have no problems keeping our essentials (fridges/freezer), limited lights, and of course electronics working for extended periods. Plus, unlike the Champion, it is so quiet we do not even hear it running.

 

[02ebz06]

First - IMO tax savings for solar purchase is rather prejudicial against the people who could use it most - retired people.
You only get the rebates if you work and owe taxes.
Being retired with no tax bill, I would get zip.

Can't help you with your generator questions.

For Solar:
I have 21 solar panels on the roof (All facing south) that are tied to the grid.
Were on the house when I bought it.
I found out the hard way that when grid power goes out, the solar did not provide and energy to the house or the grid when that happened for an hour and a half a couple weeks ago.
I found the reason for it not going on to grid is the protect the linemen, which makes sense.
Puzzled me why it does not go to house.
Apparently this was a basic setup.
I need to get an upgrade that will provide power to the house during grid outages.
You may want to have some panels pointing east as well as south for the morning and evening hours.
As you can see in the picture, early morning hours have little power produced.
About 60 - 280 between 6am and 7am. Peak production during day (with full sun) is about 1280w.
Obviously the amount of gain you would get depends on how many panels you have going east and west.

 

[schlotz]

I priced out solar for a whole home backup (ie power to run everything) the difference between going solar with battery storage vs a Generac NG/LP Generator was approximately 5x more. Definitely went with Generac and very pleased. One outage so far and the generator kicked in within seconds. Only a few clocks to reset. Sensitive electronics like computers & NAS were on UPS's. When the power came back the generator just stopped. Nothing noticeable in the house changed.

 

[Winterrider]

For solar power I would really question how effective they would be in a 3 day snow storm or torrential rain storm ? I do realize they gather some power without direct sunshine but I think there would be issues with power supply. Just my opinion.
A generator with roughly 6500 watts will run approx 9 hrs on a tank of gas. Need a lot of gas on hand. I also am not set up properly for long term outage. I have a couple small sources for heat so not worried about freezing to death.