Why don't my solar panels work in a power outage?

It's required. Under the IEEE 1547 standard, a grid-tied inverter must detect an outage and stop sending power within two seconds, a feature called anti-islanding. Inverters are certified to it under UL 1741. Without it, your panels could send power into lines that crews believe are dead.

FPL's net metering guidelines say it plainly: systems connected to the grid without batteries are not a standby power source during an FPL outage, though a system with the right equipment, such as a specialized inverter or battery, can run.

No. Rapid shutdown is a separate electrical code rule (NEC 690.12) that protects firefighters: it drops the voltage in rooftop wiring to safe levels, 30 volts within 30 seconds outside the array. Anti-islanding protects line workers; rapid shutdown protects anyone working on or near your roof.

• Enphase Sunlight Backup: some Enphase IQ8 systems can power selected circuits in daylight with no battery. It needs extra Enphase control equipment, and Enphase advises keeping backup loads under about 30% of the system's AC rating. It stops when clouds or loads outrun the sun.
• SMA Secure Power Supply: some SMA Sunny Boy inverters have a dedicated outlet that supplies up to 2,000 watts in daylight. It must be switched on by hand and can fluctuate with the weather.

Neither works at night. Ask your installer whether your equipment supports these features before a storm.

A backup battery disconnects your home from the grid in a fraction of a second, keeps your chosen circuits running and lets the panels recharge it each day, according to Tesla. One 13.5 kWh battery costs about $13,000 installed at recent South Florida prices. See whole-home battery backup and adding a battery to existing solar.

Not every battery setup backs up the home: some are installed only to manage bills. Confirm your system is set up for backup.

• Duke Energy Florida, Helene (2024): restored power to 95% of customers within 72 hours and completed about 800,000 outage restorations in all.
• Tampa Electric, Milton (2024): nearly 600,000 customers, about 70% of its total, lost power; essentially all were restored by the morning of October 16, about a week after landfall.
• FPL, Milton (2024): restored more than 2 million customers, over 99% of those affected.

Most homes are back within days, but the last neighborhoods can wait a week or more, and after Idalia Duke said homes with flood damage needed an electrician's inspection before power could be restored. That stretch is what a battery covers. See whole-home battery backup for sizing.

Only with care. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says portable generators should never run inside a home, garage, basement, crawlspace or shed, and it attributes about 100 U.S. deaths a year to carbon monoxide from them. Plugging a generator into a wall outlet instead of a transfer switch can send power back onto the lines and endanger utility crews, the same hazard anti-islanding guards against.

A battery has no exhaust, and its backup switch separates the home from the grid automatically. See generator vs. solar battery.

Stay off the roof. When the grid comes back, a grid-tied system restarts on its own; check your monitoring app to make sure production returns, and call your installer if it doesn't. See can solar panels survive a hurricane.