Solar battery backup in Texas

Anti-islanding protection is a safety requirement, not a product limitation. When the grid goes down, your inverter disconnects so your array cannot push power back onto lines that utility crews may be repairing. Every compliant grid-tied system in Texas behaves this way.

A battery plus a transfer-capable inverter creates an island your home can run on safely while the grid is down, and your panels keep charging that battery through the day.

Whole-home backup is possible but rarely the sensible starting point in Texas, because central air conditioning is a heavy load. Most homeowners back up a critical loads panel:

• Refrigerator and freezer
• Internet, router, and phone charging
• Lighting circuits
• Medical equipment, where applicable
• Well pump, on rural properties
• One cooling zone or a mini-split, where the battery supports it

We size the battery around the circuits you name, and we tell you plainly what it will and will not carry before you buy.

Houston and the Gulf Coast. Tropical storms produce the longest and most frequent residential outages in our service area. It is our most common battery market by a wide margin — see Houston solar.

Rural and co-op territory. Restoration on long rural feeders can take longer than in a dense metro, which changes the value of having storage.

Homes with medical needs. When an outage is a health issue rather than an inconvenience, backup stops being optional.

In markets where exported solar earns little credit, storing your midday production and using it in the evening can be worth more than selling it. Whether that applies depends on your utility and rate plan — the detail is in our Texas incentives guide.