Solar Power: A Must-Have When the Power Goes Out
Every winter, we hear the same complaints from homeowners who have lost their power. We live in a civilized world but we can’t even provide power to our abodes during a minor storm.
Even those with solar power may not have electricity. If you have home solar panels on your roof and are connected to the grid, when the grid goes down, so do your panels. The grid acts like a huge battery and you store your power there. When the grid is not supplying power, then you are like all your neighbors dependent on grid power.
However, if you have spent the money for a battery backup or if you live off the grid, only then will you have power. The solar batteries store the power that you will need to get you through the emergency.
And now there are kits and other ways to garner power from the sun if an emergency should strike. We have sold solar bags for a long time and they are increasingly popular. The solar bag works just like any other solar energy system, except smaller. Depending on the size of the panel on the bag, there may be sufficient power for a cell phone and some of the larger bags will carry power to your tablet or computer.
They are not going to provide you with power for your refrigerator, however. You are going to need a little more oomph to get your solar energy system to power something larger. Our solar refrigerators which run on DC need something around 200-300 watts of power, or at least one and possibly two panels.
When an emergency strikes, some of our customers are looking for a complete backup system and we have some of those systems under our solar backup and emergency kits. They are not going to power everything in your home but they will generally get you enough power for the essentials until the grid comes back on.
In previous years, you were told to prepare for emergencies by packing away the water, a flashlight and other sundries that would get you through the hardest time. Now you can add to your list a backup solar energy system just in case…