Olive...you'll be the man to maybe answer this question. I too have a solar system, it's been up an running for about 6 months. It's tied to the grid with no batteries to back it up, I do have a large generator that I want to use somehow to activate the invertor when the grid goes down.

Do you know of a way to use either a few batteries or a generator to fire up the convertor and allow it to work from sunrise to sunset? The convertor gets power from the power co. (APS) start and shuts down auto during daylight hours. I was thinking if APS goes down during the day, I could flip the main breaker and use an alternate power source to start up the convertor. Once the convertor is making electricity, then back feed it to the convertor breaker and I should have power until sunset. I just hate to have my solar panels just sitting there waiting for APS to come back on line.

I know I'm a little off subject, but it will do a lot of good for so many people if this is possible.

Thanks Apollo PS. I really like my solar system!