Electricity needs when the grids down.

[earthman]

(6 March 2024, 01:00)Skean Dhude Wrote: Most solar panel on houses link into the system in such a way that they can only put their electrickery onto the national grid. What that means if the mains goes down then your house goes with it.

You can easily convert that but you need additional hardware and the capability of rerouting the system. This is not recommended by the electrickery boards as it creates a H&S risk if they are working on a system that is being supplied power.

IMO best get the kit and after an event you can modify it to get your output. Disadvantages are obviously that if you miss a part or break something while converting then it won't work. You may also discover then that your sized supply doesn't provide the power you planned on.

The system that I have is by GivEnergy, well the battery storage, inverter and wiring are, solar panels were already fitted to this property when I bought it. I don't think that there's any risk of a national grid worker getting a shock off this system because when the auto change over switch kicks in, the main fuse box is disconnected, only a smaller, secondarily fuse box is supplied with AC from the inverter/stored batteries basically.

You are right though, some systems have a manually operated change over switch, personally I didn't go for that just in case I'm away when the grid goes down, I could come back to find all the food in the freezer spoiled for example.