Quote Originally Posted by Jim Becker View Post
Brian, I agree with you relative to normal power supply, but batteries also can serve as backup power during power outages instead of a generator. That was going to be my purpose for installing solar, actually, but I can't justify the cost for the amount of time we will likely live at this address.
The disadvantage of batteries for use during a power failure is that they have a limited supply time, usually measured in hours. With a generator you can run as long as you have fuel. If you use natural gas and the gas is not interrupted, you can run almost indefinitely.

Of course you can put in a lot of batteries, to the point where you could go several days on them, but that could get expensive. Especially if you live in a hot climate and want to run your air conditioning.

Mike