[IYAS9YAS]

It doesn't save the world or anything like that. But it does give my wife and me a level of self-reliance we didn't have before

In our area, they want to sell systems with no battery backup and that will shut off in blackouts so they don't energize the line to prevent safety hazards (rather than disconnect from the grid). I told them that was a stupid way to do things and that I wanted a grid disconnect and battery backup. Most couldn't supply that. Some could. The other issue is the current power company infrastructure will only allow a limited amount of consumers to pump excess electrons back to the grid. A lot of folks were suckered into systems they cannot hook up due to this issue because they wanted to sell the excess back.

[Tell It Right]

My inverters have the feature to turn off grid sell. That’s how I had them set the first two years. Basically, the power company didn’t know I had solar. I was just a normal customer that pulled power from the grid like everyone else except that I pulled a lot less than most people.

I didn’t start selling power to the grid until I did the research to make sure that my state doesn’t add regulations that would make selling power to the grid disadvantageous for me. For one, my inverters have the safety feature to stop putting power onto the grid if the grid goes down (so I don’t harm men working on downed lines). Thus my power utility allows my inverters to supply my home power even if the grid is down.

There’s a lot of research to do like that before going solar.