Nothing brings your night to a halt more than a blackout. One minute you’re having family dinner or catching up on your favourite series on Netflix and the next thing you know, the house is in complete darkness.
Power outages can occur without warning and, if you’re not prepared, can be very stressful and extremely inconvenient.
Understanding the power outage lingo.
What is a blackout or power outage? It’s a short or long-term loss of electricity to a particular geographical area. There are three types of outages:
A permanent fault – a substantial power shortage from a fault on a power line, with energy automatically restored once the fault is cleared.
A brownout – a temporary drop in voltage in an electrical power supply.
A blackout – a total loss of power to an area, which can last anywhere from minutes to weeks depending on the severity.
What causes power outages?
We know that they happen, but why do these power outages happen? It all has to do with an interruption to the grid. The most common causes of these outages are:
The weather: high winds, large storms and extreme heat can all affect power lines and electrical infrastructure. This includes heatwaves and cold fronts which severely increase energy demand from air conditioning and heating.
Spikes: that is a temporary increase in electricity supply. These are usually caused by lightning strikes, tripped circuit breakers or short circuits.
Vehicles: when accidents occur which result in broken power poles that cause power lines to touch.
Bushfires: aside from the damage to electrical infrastructure, electricity supply can often be disconnected to ensure community safety.
Animals: if they come into contact with pieces of equipment such as transformers or fuses, this can cause electricity infrastructure to shut down.
How can you safeguard your home from blackouts?
The standard solution is to ensure that your candles are always at the ready. But, there is another way to make sure that your home is backed-up when your area is hit with a blackout.
Did you know that our solar, battery and intelligent energy system has the ability to run as backup-power for your home in the event of a blackout?
Our modular battery system – the Equinox – comes fully equipped to backup your home. In the event of a blackout, you can access your system’s stored power to supply to your home. While this needs to be nominated and set up at installation, you can have two dedicated circuits in your home to receive power in the event of a blackout. Meaning that you can keep your most important appliances (definitely the lights, TV and the fridge) running, regardless of any disruption to the grid.
If you opt for the Tesla Powerwall product in our Solstice system, it will automatically feed stored power into your home. In fact, the Powerwall can detect grid outages and engage the battery so quickly that your home will continue running – without any disruption at all!
And what happens with blackouts that carry over from night to day? Well, if your solar is still generating power during a blackout, the system will use this as a source to power your home’s energy supply or recharge your battery.
You’re sure to be the envy of everyone in the neighbourhood next time there’s a blackout. Because when you start using solar, storage and intelligent energy management to power your home – you’ll never be left in the dark!
Do you want to protect your home against future power outages? Request a quote today.
