Solar and battery instead of a generator in Southwest Florida

When I moved to Florida, I was concerned as most people are about the need for backup power. I got prices for generators and by the time you added propane tanks the cost was above $20,000. I then looked into solar.

What a generator actually costs

The unit is the smallest part. Pad, gas or propane supply, tanks, transfer switch, permitting and inspection all follow, and then it needs servicing every year whether the power went out or not. It runs loud, it runs on fuel you have to keep on hand, and in the week after a storm that fuel is the hardest thing in the county to find.

What solar and battery do differently

Panels and a battery cost in the same range once you total a generator honestly, and they work every day rather than four hours a year. Southwest Florida has the sun for it. The battery carries the house through the evening and through an outage, and the federal tax credit changes the math considerably.

The honest limitations

A battery is not a generator. It will run the refrigerator, the well pump, lights and internet through an outage; it will not run a whole house with two air handlers for three days. Sizing matters, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling. Panels also have to be engineered and attached for our wind code — this is not a market where you staple something to a roof.

Where it also works commercially

We built a solar parking lot alongside a new pool and pool building at Ryerson State Park. Commercially, a parking canopy does two things at once in Florida: it generates and it shades, and shade has value in a Naples parking lot in July.

Design it in, do not add it on

The cheapest time to put in solar is while the roof is being framed and the electrical is being laid out. Conduit runs, panel capacity, roof planes and orientation are free to change on a drawing and expensive to change afterwards.

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