Solar Panels for Collapse, Are They Worth It? Here's an Honest Answer.

A few years ago, we installed solar panels on our roof. It was a nice little setup with a backup battery and everything. It was at the very limits of what we could afford, but it felt like something we needed to do sooner than later. You could call this a privilege. Then again, we did this instead of other things, and it was a hard decision. We didn’t buy them outright. We put them on a finance plan.

Solar panels might seem like the stuff of affluent latte liberals, but where we lived, plenty of people were getting them—including librarians and teachers. At the time, at least, states like ours offered decent reimbursement packages and metering plans to help us out. We saved money on electricity, and we buffered ourselves against the storms that were always coming through.

(They were getting worse.)

A year later, just when we were starting to wonder if we’d made the right decision, a powerful tornado hit our town and knocked out the grid. This wasn’t a little twister. It was the kind that earns honorofics like “catastrophic” and “devastating.” This thing passed right above us before it touched down. Barely a year later, it happened again. Yep, two close encounters with tornadoes. The second one didn’t stay on the ground, fortunately, but it was a wakeup call. And after we moved, guess what happened? Yep, another tornado—not in tornado alley. Imagine taking care of a toddler during a climate disaster in the middle of a pandemic, with no power, and your only options include a hotel with no clean air—and nobody taking said pandemic seriously. In that sense, we made a good choice.

Those solar panels allowed us to stay in our home for a week and continue taking precautions on our own terms.

But we could’ve made a better choice.

Solar gurus make so many claims about the pros and cons of owning solar panels. They cite research that it adds value to your home and makes it more attractive to buyers. It also adds security.

But…

There’s plenty of downsides and risks, too. You can shell out tens of thousands of dollars on a solar system and wind up with something that won’t help you that much during an emergency or a collapse scenario. Plus, tariffs from both administrations have put the future of affordable solar into question. And yet, I’m very interested in not dying during a heat wave, freezing during an arctic blast, or suffering in the wake of another storm that knocks out our power for days. Aren’t you? The way things are going, especially lately, it’s looking like we’re going to be relying on ourselves and our neighbors, not any kind of government. So, it’s worth asking whether it’s truly worth the investment, and if you have cheaper solutions. I’ve also wanted to know how long that investment would last.

In the end, I don’t want a pretend doomsday fortress that simply sucks up all my income. I want ideas that are scalable and adaptable, something I could even help someone else get up and running.

(You know, the whole community thing.)

Here’s everything I’ve learned.