Does your solar work in a blackout? The honest answer

Every time the network goes down across Northern Victoria or the Riverina, we get the same call: *the sun's out, why is my solar not running my house?*

The short answer: it shut itself off on purpose

Standard grid-connected solar is required by Australian wiring rules to disconnect the moment the grid goes down. This is called anti-islanding, and it's a safety requirement under AS/NZS 4777, not a fault or a cheap inverter.

The reason is straightforward. When the power goes out, line workers have to be able to treat those wires as dead. If thousands of rooftop systems kept pushing power back into the network, they wouldn't be. So every compliant inverter in the country drops out within seconds and stays out until it sees a stable grid again.

That means on a clear, sunny day with a perfectly healthy 11kW system on the roof, your house goes dark with everyone else's. Nothing is broken.

What a battery changes — and the condition attached

A battery can keep your house running through an outage, but only if it's installed with backup configured. This is the part we'd rather be upfront about than have you find out later.

Backup requires the system to physically isolate your home from the grid before it starts supplying power — that's what makes it safe, and it needs the right hardware and wiring at install time. A battery sitting on the wall without that isn't a backup system; it's a bill-reduction system.

Worth knowing about our current pricing: the GoodWe ESA promo pricing we advertise ($8,900 for 16kWh and up) is for an AC-coupled install without backup switched on. Backup is available as an add-on — just ask us to quote it — but we're not going to let you assume it's included when it isn't.

What backup actually runs

With backup properly configured, a GoodWe ESA switches over automatically in under 4 milliseconds — fast enough that computers and modems don't notice. What it will run depends on how it's set up:

• Essential circuits is the common approach — fridge, freezer, lights, power points, internet and comms. Enough to keep the house liveable and the food cold.
• Whole-of-home backup is possible but needs both the capacity and the inverter output to handle everything at once, including the big loads. Ducted air conditioning and electric hot water are the usual sticking points.

Sizing matters here too. A 16kWh battery covering essentials will comfortably outlast a normal overnight outage. Riding out a multi-day event with the air conditioning on is a different conversation — see what size home battery do you need.

Why this matters more out here than in town

Rural and semi-rural properties across Northern Victoria and the southern Riverina sit on longer runs of line with more exposure to storms, wind and vegetation than a suburban street. Outages are simply more common and tend to last longer. For a dairy, a property on tank water with an electric pump, or anyone working from home, that's the difference between an inconvenience and a genuine problem.

It's also why a generator has been the traditional answer out here — and why a properly configured battery is increasingly the better one: no fuel, no starting it in the rain, no wondering whether it'll run.

Want backup, not just bill savings?

Tell us that upfront and we'll quote it properly rather than retro-fitting it later. Call Brooke on 0408 258 298 or start with our Quote Builder. If you're still weighing up whether storage is worth it at all, solar only vs solar + battery is the honest version of that argument.