When the grid goes down, a home battery is the difference between a normal evening and a scramble for flashlights. It sits in your garage or on a wall, charges quietly from the grid or your solar panels, and takes over within milliseconds of an outage — fast enough that your Wi-Fi router never reboots.
Sunny Sky Solar installs battery backup for homeowners across New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, Pennsylvania and California. You do not need to own solar panels to get one, and if you already have solar, adding storage is usually a one-day job.
What a home battery actually powers
This is where most homeowners get oversold. A single battery does not run your whole house at full load indefinitely — it runs the circuits you choose, for as long as the stored energy lasts.
A typical 10-13 kWh battery will comfortably carry a refrigerator, internet, lighting, phone and laptop charging, a gas furnace’s blower, and a sump pump for roughly 12 to 24 hours. Add a second battery and you can bring in well pumps, a window air conditioner, or a medical device that cannot be interrupted.
Central air conditioning and electric resistance heat are the two loads that drain a battery fastest. During your assessment we look at your actual panel schedule and tell you plainly which circuits are realistic and which would need more storage than makes financial sense.
Battery backup versus a standby generator
Both keep the lights on. They fail differently, and that is what should drive your decision.
- No fuel, no refueling. A battery has nothing to run out of mid-storm and no gas line or propane tank to maintain. A generator is only as good as its fuel supply and its last service.
- Instant, silent transfer. Batteries switch over in milliseconds with no noise. A standby generator takes 10-30 seconds to start and runs loudly the entire time.
- It works every day, not just during outages. Paired with solar or a time-of-use rate, a battery shifts your usage to cheaper hours year-round. A generator earns nothing between storms.
- Generators still win on multi-day outages. If you routinely lose power for three or more days and want central air the whole time, a fuel-burning generator is the honest answer. We will tell you that rather than sell you four batteries.
Pairing a battery with solar
Solar alone does not keep your house running in a blackout. This surprises almost everyone. For safety, a standard grid-tied solar system shuts down the moment utility power fails, so line workers are not repairing a wire your roof is energizing. Without storage, a sunny afternoon during an outage produces nothing you can use.
A battery breaks that dependency. Your panels charge the battery, the battery runs the house, and on a clear day the cycle repeats — which means an outage lasting several days is survivable rather than merely endured. This is the single most common reason our solar customers come back a year later to add storage.
What installation involves
We start with a free assessment of your electrical panel, your outage history and the loads that actually matter to you. From there we size the system, pull the electrical permit, coordinate the utility interconnection where required, and handle the inspection.
Most single-battery installations are completed in one day. Homes needing a panel upgrade or a separate critical-loads subpanel take longer, and we tell you that before you commit, not after the crew arrives.
Incentives worth knowing about
The federal residential clean energy credit covers a percentage of the cost of qualifying battery storage of at least 3 kWh, whether or not it is installed alongside solar. Several states we serve layer additional programs on top — Massachusetts and California in particular have run storage-specific incentives, and utilities in a number of our markets pay customers to let stored energy support the grid on peak days.
Incentive programs change, budgets run out, and eligibility rules differ by utility. We check what is actually available at your address on the day of your assessment rather than quoting a number from a brochure.
Frequently asked questions
How long will a home battery run my house?
It depends entirely on which circuits you back up and how much you use. A single 10-13 kWh battery running essentials — fridge, internet, lights, furnace blower, phone charging — typically lasts 12 to 24 hours. Running central air conditioning can drain the same battery in a few hours. We size the system against your real usage, not a best-case number.
Do I need solar panels to install a battery?
No. A battery can charge from the grid alone, which still gives you outage protection and, on time-of-use rates, lets you store cheaper off-peak power for expensive evening hours. Adding solar means the battery can recharge during a multi-day outage instead of depleting once.
Will my solar panels power my house during a blackout without a battery?
No, and this catches most people off guard. Grid-tied solar automatically shuts off during an outage as a safety requirement, so utility crews are not working on lines your system is feeding. Storage is what allows your panels to keep serving your home when the grid is down.
Where does the battery physically go?
Most commonly a garage wall, a basement, or an exterior wall near your electrical panel. Units have temperature ranges, so an unconditioned attic or full sun exposure in a hot climate is usually a poor choice. We confirm the location during the assessment.
How long do home batteries last?
Manufacturers generally warrant residential lithium batteries for around ten years, typically guaranteeing the unit will still hold a defined percentage of its original capacity at the end of that term. Capacity declines gradually rather than failing all at once.
Can I add a battery to a solar system I already have?
Usually yes. Whether it is straightforward depends on your existing inverter — some are storage-ready and some require an additional inverter alongside them. We check your equipment before quoting so the price you get is the price you pay.
Related pages
- Residential solar with $0 down
- Roofing and roof replacement
- EV charger installation
- How batteries work in an outage
- Solar panels in New Jersey
- Where we work
- Common questions about going solar
- Book a free assessment
Find out what it would take to keep your lights on
Tell us your address and roughly how often you lose power. We will look at your panel, your usage and the incentives available where you live, and give you a straight answer about what size battery makes sense — including if the answer is that you do not need one.