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Got a 700W "balcony" system. It steadily eats €20 off the monthly bill at the moment.
I'm assuming it's one of the systems that plugs right into an outlet to synchronize with mains power?
I know those cut power if mains power goes down, but is there a built-in way to still use the panels for powering stuff not through the wall?
For example, if your power goes down, is there a socket on the inverter that you could plug your computer into or something like that?
Obviously, it wouldn't be hard to just keep an extra inverter or a portable power station on hand, but I'm curious what the mainstream devices provide.
No, they only sync up to an existing network. It is more than sufficient for what it does.
Once we'll put modules on the roof, we'll add a battery and usage control. That would be a much bigger output with 30m^2 roof pointing south. There I will make sure to have an AC output, if only to keep heating or the freezer alive.
Those systems aren't legal where I'm at (though hopefully soon), so I pretty much just have the opposite capability. I have panels that I can use to power devices and keep my refrigerator working if the power goes out, but 99.5% of the time, they aren't doing anything.
"The power goes out" luckily is a very, very rare event here. A 20 minute outage in a part of a city is a story in the national evening news. The longest outage I remember was for five days in a few villages, and it was in the daily news.
So being able to supply my own power is a rather extreme prepping thing. But as feedback of power into the grid only pays 5ct per kWh, storing and using it is important. Having an active outlet is a bonus, not a survival thing.
There are systems with build-in batteries. Mainly for camping and also bigger ones for housing. Panels go into inverter that is in one block with the battery. Often the battery has external plugs for Independent power supply during outage. Eg Ecoflow comes with all-in bundles.
This entire field is very innovative and each year new ideas and use cases pop up
A lot of them don't have dedicated sockets on them to prevent you from back feeding power into the grid when it's down. There's nothing stopping Joe Schmo from getting a male to male cable and plugging that into his wall outlet and giving an electrical worker a nice zap. Gotta plan for the lowest common denominator when it comes to safety.
I guess that's fair. It would be nice to have at least like USB outputs to keep devices charged during a power outage.
this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2025
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