I’ve had rooftop solar for roughly 10 years, and I love almost everything about it. Almost everything. There’s one downside, and that’s the fact that, like many smart home products, my solar array is partly dependent on the cloud.
There are many parts to making rooftop solar work. Your panels convert sunlight into electricity, and an inverter turns that direct current (DC) into alternating current (AC) that your home is able to use. These inverters come in many different forms. My system doesn’t depend on just one inverter but instead has a micro-inverter underneath each panel.
These micro-inverters are an innovation that one major solar company, Enphase, is known for. They prevent my entire system from going down due to a single point of failure.
I’ve gone all-in on solar, and thankfully my system works without any input from me. To be absolutely clear, it does not rely on an internet connection in order to function. It does, however, depend on the internet for me to view what it’s doing.
I can monitor my panels entirely from my phone using the Enphase Enlighten app. This is a web and phone app that allows me to view the energy production of each solar panel. I can also view useful metrics like how much energy I produce each day, week, month, or year. It’s thanks to this software that I can see how much more energy my panels are producing this year than they did last year, thanks to us adding a second solar array to our roof.
For the most part, rooftop solar is a passive affair. Every day, my panels produce electricity that either powers my home directly, goes directly into one of our two EVs, or is exported to the grid. I receive credits from my power company for the energy that our panels produce. The power company then puts this credit towards the energy that it sends me in the future, and I am only required to pay for any deficit between these two numbers. This arrangement is known as net-metering. It’s viral for us, since we don’t have any home backup batteries to funnel excess energy into and instead rely on portable power stations during power outages.
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Since my home produces more energy than it needs, there are months when we only pay the small connection fee and local taxes. It is only due to the fact that we have two electric cars that we drive far more than we used to that we pay for any electricity usage at all.
Now let’s imagine that my situation was different, and I lived in one of the many areas where net-metering isn’t an option. In that case, it would be more beneficial for me to install batteries. I could then schedule when to run certain appliances and when to run off battery power based on when the electricity rates are cheapest. If I were to install Enphase batteries, I could manage this via the Enphase app. Those who have Tesla inverters and batteries can do so through the Tesla app. Other apps include mySolarEdge, and companies like Anker have also gotten into the game.
The thing is, most of these apps rely on an internet connection. In an emergency situation where cable and cell towers are down, that could leave you without the ability to manage your solar panels.
I’ve installed rooftop solar twice, and in both cases, the installer recommended Enphase Enlighten systems. These systems are reliable thanks to their use of microinverters, and the software is easy to manage. I imagine the widespread use also means that parts are easy to supply.
If you want a rooftop solar system with no cloud dependency, it’s better to look at DIY options from companies like Off-Grid Source and Signature Solar. Inverters from Sol-Ark have long been among the most powerful options. These are inverters you can manage directly by pressing buttons on the unit itself, with wireless control as an optional extra.
Not every installer is willing to install a DIY inverter for you. Some only work with the parts and brands that they choose. After all, avoiding the cloud does not make the list of top solar myths holding back many prospective customers.
A solar installer is not likely to tell you up front that your system relies on an internet connection. If this is something that concerns you, you need to do your own research and know which questions to ask. Then hunt around until you have an installer that knows how to answer them. If your main impetus for going solar is to also go off-grid, you don’t want to spend tens of thousands of dollars only to find that your system unmanageable without access to the web.
We want to hear from you. Share your perspective in the comments below, and please keep the conversation respectful.
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I have a on-grid system and not a chance I’ll connect it to the internet. It’s not necessary and there’s no upside of having it online
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