New tech can make your house a solar microgrid

New version of support hardware can keep homes solar powered during outages.

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[ricardoRI]

Unfortunately the only way to safely power your home when the grid is out is to physically disconnect it, that's so you don't backfeed power and shock the maintenance guys working on the lines they think are turned off.

I'm guessing that what the load controller and other hardware does, and most likely the smart microinverters won't push any power in "off-grid" mode until they get a signal or can verify that the grid really is disconnected.

Kind of surprised they couldn't get the price any lower but maybe there is more hardware than just an anti-islanding relay...

So how do the battery-backed systems work as a large UPS effectively?

Or do they have more smarts that prevents them feeding power to the grid if they don't sense any grid power?

If that's the case, why can't regular inverters do the same without a battery? Is it just inverter manufacturers cheaping out?

A switch disconnecting the grid from the house is a trivial expense, and only stupid greed and incompetence prevent the PV from functioning during a grid-down event.

Very few things can run directly off solar panels. The voltage and amps vary widely depending on clouds/irradiance and temperature. A battery is generally needed to buffer the PV output, and then the inverter can output a controlled voltage and manage surge loads.

This article is mostly fluff which barely repeats the press release without any research or discovery.