Solar Panels Query

[Skvez]

(10 September 2013, 00:05)Steve Wrote: What about using a battery to power a small inverter, then feeding the output of that inverter into the "mains in" on the grid tie inverter, to fool it that mains was present.

The Grid-tie inverted is trying to output as much power as it can, what's not used by the house is (normally) exported to the mains.
In the scenario you describe the mains is no longer there to accept the difference between local generation and local load.

If the load is greater than the output of the array the Voltage will collapse and the array will 'notice' the loss of the mains and cut off (probably no damage but no power either)
If the load is less than the output of the array the Voltage will rise and either the array will notice conclude a loss of the mains and cut off (probably no damage but no power either) or run at too high a Voltage resulting in probable damage to your load, your original inverter that you uses to 'jump start' the system and the grid-tie-inverter too.
These systems are just not designed to work without the mains present.