Emergency Solar Preparedness Guide for San Diego Residents

Most solar systems are reliable for decades, but the events that stress them are regional. San Diego deals with public safety power shutoffs, wildfire smoke and ash, heat waves that push inverters into thermal derating, winter storms that drive water under flashings, and the occasional earthquake. None of those are hypothetical, and none of them are best handled for the first time while the power is out. This guide is the plan to write now, the procedure to follow in the first ten minutes, and the records that make an insurance claim survivable.

Build the plan before you need it

Keep one page, printed, where you can find it without your phone. It should carry five things: which circuits your battery actually backs up, how to reach your installer's service line — ours is (619) 555-0165, staffed around the clock for emergency calls — the make and model of your inverter, the location of the AC and DC disconnects, and a list of any medical equipment in the house that depends on power. Photograph the page and keep a copy in the car as well.

The reserve setting is the decision you make in advance

If you have a battery, its reserve percentage is the difference between riding out a two-day shutoff and running dry on the first night. Set a meaningful reserve before fire season, not after the alert. Confirm which loads sit on the backup panel — a refrigerator, a few lights, internet, and a medical device belong there; an electric range and a pool pump do not.

The first ten minutes of an outage

• Confirm whether the outage is yours alone or the neighbourhood's. If your neighbours have power, treat it as a system fault, not a grid outage.
• Read the inverter display or monitoring app before touching anything. The error text is what your installer will ask for first.
• Do not open the DC disconnect under load. On a sunny day the array side is live and the arc hazard is real.
• Do not reset the inverter repeatedly. Three failed restarts turn a diagnostic into a bigger fault.
• Do not hose down a hot array or an inverter that has been running in the sun.
• Write down the time, the displayed code, and the weather. That note is what makes a warranty call fast.

Safe shutdown, in the right order

If you must isolate the system, the sequence matters: turn the inverter off at its own control, then open the AC disconnect, then open the DC disconnect. Re-energise in the reverse order. If your system has rapid shutdown, understand that it reduces conductor voltage at the array for firefighter safety — it does not make the conductors safe to handle. Never work on the DC side yourself.

Monitoring alerts worth arming

Monitoring is only useful if it speaks first. Turn on three alerts: production below a threshold for more than a day, inverter fault or offline, and a communication loss. A system that silently stops reporting for a week is the most common way a real production problem hides. If you have no monitoring, a monthly reading of the utility meter against the inverter's own total is the minimum discipline.

Wildfire season preparation

Ash is alkaline and abrasive, and it does not rinse off cleanly. Before a wind event, clear combustible material from around a ground-mounted array and from under roof-mounted panels where debris accumulates. After an event, do not wash ash into a storm drain or onto plantings; rinse the array in the cooler part of the day and let the first pass carry the bulk off before a cleaning pass. Then walk the array looking for cracked glass, lifted clamps, and scorched or discoloured wiring — ash plus heat is a combination that exposes existing faults.

Ground-mounted systems need a wind check after every Santa Ana event. Fasteners loosen, and a rack that has moved is a rack that will fail in the next event. The same check applies to conduit runs and to anything mounted on a parapet.

After the event: documented, then re-energised

Photograph everything before you clean or repair it — wide shots for context, close shots for damage, and a picture of the inverter's error screen. Note the date, the time, and the weather. Then have the system inspected before it goes back into service, particularly if there was flooding, a roof impact, or a strike nearby. Restoring power to an array with water intrusion or a damaged conductor is how a recoverable event becomes an electrical fire.

The one-page emergency card

1. Installer service line and account number.
2. Inverter make, model, serial number, and installation date.
3. Location of the AC disconnect, the DC disconnect, and the main breaker.
4. Battery reserve setting and the list of backed-up circuits.
5. Medical equipment and anyone in the household who depends on it.
6. Two out-of-area contacts, because local lines congest first.

Twenty minutes of writing, once, is the whole preparation. When the power goes out at nine at night and a battery is at thirty percent, the plan in the drawer is worth more than anything on your phone.

Frequently Asked Questions