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by bradly 2132 days ago
This my be a dumb question, but if I have solar (no power wall or batteries) will I still have power during a rolling blackout?
3 comments

It depends on how your system is hooked up. Some will cut out when the line power drops off, as a way of protecting line workers who might be working on what they think is a unenergized line, so they aren't surprised by the power your system puts on the line.

Others are designed with an automatic shunt that will still allow you to draw power as long as you are generating it.

And some require you to manually flip a switch.

You'd know if you had it, because it's an expensive design option that's very rare. If you didn't ask for and pay for it, you don't have it.
Some solar inverters can do it without batteries. But if a cloud passes over your panels you might get near zero watt.
Considering that yesterday's outage began at ~18:45, rooftop solar would have been generating 0-20% of its nameplate capacity.