In 2020, the average resident of the United States had power outages for just over eight hours, according to statistics from the Energy Information Administration. The report noted that this was the highest number since 2013, when the organization began collecting this data.
During huge storms or huge oppressive heat waves, the power can go out, and many of the amenities — TV, Internet, refrigerators, etc. — Americans just enjoy breaking down. Currently, the main options for avoiding this fate are batteries and backup generators. However, a company called Enphase says it has created a product that will allow your home to run right off the solar panels as they produce, though there are some caveats.
Shouldn’t solar panels work during an outage?
You would think so, but no – most of the time. Solar panels installed on houses (and other structures) that are connected to the electricity grid also fail during power outages. The disturbance doesn’t stop them from producing power; the power simply cannot be used in the absence of a functioning grid. That’s because the microinverters are part of an integrated system that includes the grid, power meter, and other associated hardware.
(There are two exceptions to this. The first are off-grid buildings set up to generate electricity from solar panels. The other exception are structures to which battery systems are connected, although these can cost a lot—about $14,000 to install in some cases. )
To increase the number of exceptions, Enphase developed the IQ8 Microinverter. Inverters convert direct current (DC) produced by solar panels into alternating current (AC) supplied by the grid. A microinverter is just a small version of that. According to Raghu Belur, Enphase co-founder and Chief Products Officer, microinverters operate while attached to each solar panel rather than having many panels all fed into a larger inverter. This approach to having a distributed architecture has proven to work well in other applications, such as in computers and data centers, he said.
“The advantage [of putting inverters at every solar panel] is that when you do the power conversion on the panel itself — when you convert from DC to AC — you get better performance,” he told Ars. “The reason you get better performance is because the output of one panel isn’t determined by the output of another solar panel, as opposed to a centralized case.”
Another advantage is that there is no single point of failure; each panel and inverter acts as an independent power producer. Furthermore, the microinverters are all linked to software that, among other things, uses a mathematical model to predict power consumption in whatever structure they are connected. That’s why the name contains “IQ”. Because it’s smart. (Maybe. We didn’t actually ask about that.)
OK, how will my house be powered if the grid goes out?
A collection of these microinverters on a house can act as a microgrid. Each contains a chip that – when the main power grid has a power failure – switches from an on-grid to an off-grid mode. In this mode, the microinverters ignore the utility grid and direct power to the building they are connected to. Essentially, it can work as part of a network integrated system or part of a microgrid.
Once in off-grid mode, if the sun is still shining, the solar panels will send their power directly to the house. But if the power went out because of, say, a huge storm, the panels wouldn’t produce anyway and the building would need a battery system to maintain power. However, according to Belur, the microinverters can extend the time the building has power and eliminate the need for owners to purchase a particularly large battery configuration.
There are two types of configurations that property owners can choose. The first is the Sunlight Backup System, which uses the microinverters without a battery. This setup requires the microinverters and a lot of other Enphase hardware: a combiner box like the IQ Combiner 4, a system controller like the IQ System Controller, a load controller, and a quick shutdown switch. (To be clear, some version of all of this hardware is required for the panels to function.) The other configuration is functionally the same, but also includes a battery or batteries.
According to Enphase’s website, one of the company’s more affordable systems can run between $6,000 and $8,000. This cost is potentially much cheaper than some more expensive battery systems.
So technically it’s true: the IQ8 increases the likelihood that your home or business will have power during a power outage. Will it cover you 100 percent regardless of the weather or time of day? No. Is it cheaper than many high-end battery systems? Yes.
