Comment Grid-tie solar won't help during blackouts (Score 2) 60
Most of the solar installations in Texas in the last year are grid-tie systems. When the grid goes down, they stop providing power.
During the Snowpocalypse, my home went for 4.5 days without electricity and an overlapping 4.5 days without water, for a total of 7 days reduced function. I was decently prepared. Unlike a lot of my neighbors, I have a gas stove top, that I was able to use to keep the house in the upper 50s. So when it thawed, I didn't have broken pipes. About half the homes on my street were flooded in the aftermath, and two nearby apartment complexes only recently moved tenants back in.
I also had a couple of small solar panels (10W and 20W), a few UPSes (my neighborhood has frequent brownouts), and I was able to keep a few devices and my network running for the duration. But, I was absolutely out of reserve when the power came back on.
By late last summer, I had a limited off-grid system capability of running my refrigerator or network for a couple of days. I've now got 600W of panels on top of what was a wooden swing set (permits are needed for the roof mount, even without grid connection), and two 400aH battery banks, so both the fridge and the network are running off of DIY solar. I'm using an automatic transfer switch, so the grid is the backup UPS to that system. It has been a couple of weeks since it tripped over to the grid. 400W more would cover the shorter days of the year.
I'm now torn between continuing to incrementally add to this system, and paying someone to handle the permits for a larger grid-tie system on my roof. I've been told by others that the permitting process for individuals is lengthy and nearly insurmountable in my area, otherwise, I'd be straight to hiring an electrician for the connections and doing most of the other work myself.