For most solar buyers in Stroudsburg, a grid-tied system offers the most benefits. A well-designed net metering policy in the state turns the power grid into a giant battery storage for your grid-tied solar panel system. You can feed unused solar power generated during the day to the grid, and draw power from it during the night. Since you get a retail price credit for feeding power to the grid, it offsets your power bill dollar to dollar.
For this reason, it’s not uncommon for solar buyers to ignore battery storage for their solar panels altogether. After all, why invest in battery storage when the grid acts like backup power? It’s not like Pennsylvania offers battery storage incentives like Connecticut does to make storage irresistible to buyers.
To be fair, the logic is pretty sound, given the limited information we have discussed so far. However, you’ll soon learn that there is a broader context to this discussion, and you’ve probably ignored some crucial variables in your calculations.
Power Outages and Blackouts
What do you do when there’s a grid issue or a blackout?
If you think your solar panels will continue to supply you power during the daytime, you are in for a surprise. Solar installations feature a built-in auto-shut-off button which shuts down your entire solar panel system in the event of a blackout to prevent electricity from your solar panels, posing a hazard for the electricians and technicians fixing the grid issue.
It doesn’t matter whether your solar panels are generating the energy or you have battery storage; your system simply cuts off all power supply.
However, when you can set up a microgrid configuration to turn your property into an island by disconnecting it from the grid in the event of a power outage. Once you are disconnected, you can use energy supply from solar panels during the day and battery storage during the night.
Green Power Energy offers Enphase IQ8+ Microinverters and Enpower Smartswitch™ bundle to create a microgrid on your property so that you can maintain power supply from solar panels even when there’s a blackout. If you add Enphase’s Encharge™ battery storage to this bundle, you can also enjoy power supply during night hours, when there’s a blackout.
Federal Income Tax Incentive
If you combine battery storage with your photovoltaic system, you can reduce the price of your battery storage by up to 26%. You can claim this tax credit when filing your annual income taxes.
This is a one-time opportunity, and if you miss it now, you won’t be able to grab it later.
Get Smart Solar
Adding battery storage to your solar solution is a financially prudent decision and protects you against unusual events like voltage fluctuations or power outages.