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California’s grid is run by CAISO, and for several years now its most predictable outage hasn’t been a storm — it has been planned. Since 2019, PG&E and the other big utilities have used Public Safety Power Shutoffs (PSPS) to cut power to whole neighborhoods when wildfire-weather winds pick up, and the August 2020 heat wave layered rolling blackouts on top. If you’re comparing solar quotes in California, here’s the part installers rarely lead with: when the grid goes dark in a shutoff, a standard rooftop system goes dark with it — even at noon on a cloudless day.
The PSPS trap most CAISO homeowners miss
A PSPS isn’t a failure of your panels; it’s a deliberate de-energizing of the lines they feed into. From Sonoma County wine country down through SCE and SDG&E territory, a de-energized line means your grid-tied inverter has nothing to synchronize to. So the one time you’d most want your own solar — a hot, smoky afternoon with the grid switched off for days — is exactly when a panels-only system gives you nothing you can actually plug into.
Anti-islanding, in plain English
The reason is a safety rule called anti-islanding. A grid-tied inverter is required to stop pushing power the instant the grid loses voltage, so it can’t back-feed a “dead” line and endanger a PG&E crew working to restore it. That rule is non-negotiable, and it’s the right call. But it also means rooftop solar and battery storage do two different jobs: panels lower your monthly bill, while only stored power keeps the lights on when CAISO is off.
The fix that costs less than a whole-home battery
There are two ways to close that gap. A whole-home battery wired into your solar is seamless but expensive, often adding many thousands of dollars and weeks of permitting before it’s live. A portable solar battery backup does the essential job for a fraction of that, works the day it arrives, and needs no electrician.
For the core of a home during a shutoff — refrigerator, Wi-Fi, phones, and lights — the Solar Generator HomePower 3000 runs essentials for one to two days, and its included panels refill it under California’s strong sun while the grid stays off.
▶ See the Solar Generator HomePower 3000 use code DEAL5
Homeowners in a larger place around Los Angeles or San Diego, or anyone who wants to carry more through a multi-day PSPS, can step up to the HomePower 3600 Plus: 3,584Wh and 3,600W, expandable to 21kWh, with a transfer switch that ties it into your circuits.
▶ Check the HomePower 3600 Plus
The takeaway for California: going solar lowers your bill, but it doesn’t make you shutoff-proof on its own. In PSPS country, the pairing that matters is panels plus even a modest battery — that’s what turns a de-energized afternoon from a blackout into a non-event.
Keep reading: California solar incentives & costs · Solar battery backup vs rooftop solar (Oregon) · Solar battery backup vs rooftop solar (Washington)