Testing Best-Effort Solar

Most rooftop solar installs don't provide power when the grid is down. The primary goal is to avoid sending power out to the grid where it could injure people working to restore power, but more recently it's been expanded to avoid energized lines extending out from the panel where they could injure a firefighter on the roof. When we installed solar in 2018 we selected an inverter which offers an outlet that provides best-effort power ("Secure Power Supply") during grid outages when the sun is shining. I'd try to sell you on it, but the newer rules mean my inverter wouldn't be legal for a new install. I suspect this doesn't pass a cost-benefit test, especially when you consider the risk of serious disasters. Since the harms of allowing it are concentrated (firefighters) while the benefits are diffuse (everyone with solar) and speculative (very uncommon for a disaster to be this serious), however, it got banned. Still, I wanted to make sure mine was still working, and especially that it would be able to charge my two portable power stations (Anker SOLIX C1000 Gen1 and Gen2). I tried over the weekend, but it was cloudy and the panels weren't producing much. It wouldn't charge the batteries, but it could do an 8W lightbulb: When I came home from work today, it was a complete best case scenario: I turned off the Solar AC Disconnect, to simulate a grid outage: I plugged in the Gen2, and it said it was drawing 1,004W: The inverter said it was sending 1,031W, which is close enough: This is enough for a full charge in about an hour. After it finished, I plugged in the Gen1 to charge. It said it was drawing 512W: These were both above 50%, though, so it's possible they'd draw more power if they were less full. It looks like you can use an app with Bluetooth to adjust how much current they pull, down to 200W. I wish they had a button for this, but in the meantime I should ensure that we have at least two phones in the house with the app installed. Overall I'm pretty happy with