A Pennsylvania homeowner with a sizable solar-and-battery setup is grappling with a question more households may face as outages and extreme weather become more frequent and severe: When is a backup generator worth it if you already have 30 kilowatt-hours of storage?
In this case, the answer may hinge less on day-to-day energy needs than on the cost of peace of mind.
Here's what to know
In Reddit's r/Solar community, the debate centered on a roughly $1,000 add-on, a 5-kilowatt propane generator with automatic start.
The original poster, from eastern Pennsylvania, said their home already runs on a Schneider inverter with 30 kWh of battery storage and a 30-panel AC-coupled solar array.
OP added that their battery often sits near 50% by evening because they "use it extensively for TOU game," so the generator would be there only for unusual stretches of bad weather, not to carry the entire house, but to "just top off the battery in case of extreme condition (thick cloud, snow)."
Those prolonged outages, the homeowner added, happen only "maybe once in 4-5years."
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For several commenters, the price alone made the proposal appealing. One wrote, "For $1k just do it!" Another called the setup "a flat out steal." A third commenter argued, "For just $1000 and with a battery that doesn't get fully charged it's almost a no brainer."
The poster later underscored why the offer stood out, saying the low cost was the main reason it was under consideration and identifying the unit as a "Genmax 6250 inverter, 240v, tri fuel, with 2-wire remote start."
More background
What made the decision less straightforward was that the system already performs well in normal conditions. The homeowner said their array can generate 60-70 kWh on bright days, but also noted, "The problem is that power tends to go out in extreme weather (hurricanes and snow storms), not on a sunny afternoon in June."
That seasonal mismatch came up repeatedly in the discussion. Solar panels and batteries can cover a lot, but snow, heavy clouds, and winter storms can slash production just when backup matters most, and several people with comparable systems said summer outages are often easier to ride out than winter ones.
One person who had lived through a storm outage said batteries handled important loads overnight but admitted, "I wouldn't have made it through the next day."
For households that are not trying to keep every circuit online, commenters suggested that a small generator used mainly to recharge storage can be cheaper than adding a much larger battery bank.
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