{"id":97155,"date":"2026-01-12T14:37:58","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T05:07:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/?p=97155"},"modified":"2026-01-12T17:14:49","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T07:44:49","slug":"what-to-do-with-solar-battery-during-a-bushfire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solarquotes.com.au\/blog\/what-to-do-with-solar-battery-during-a-bushfire\/","title":{"rendered":"What To Do With Your Solar & Battery During A Bushfire"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"SolarSummer had a slow start around my place but it’s hard to miss now, and along with it, emergency warnings for bushfires, extreme heat and flooding.<\/p>\n

So what special precautions should you take with your solar and battery systems?<\/p>\n

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Should You Switch Solar Off During A Bushfire Evacuation?<\/h2>\n

As bushfires tear through the state, authorities in Victoria have warned people that if they are going to evacuate, they should switch everything<\/em> off in the main switchboard and shut down their solar, including<\/em> any battery system.<\/p>\n

I expect they’re trying to make it super simple for all involved. When the distribution authorities shut down the power for the whole district, they’re trying to make everyone safe and prevent any possibility of a fire being started<\/em> by power lines. So firefighters can attack a building fire with confidence that there’s no power on.<\/p>\n

If you don’t care about the contents of the freezer, go ahead and turn everything<\/em> off in the main switchboard.\u00a0 However it strikes me as a bit counterproductive to shut down power when you’ve invested in an expensive battery to keep things running.<\/p>\n

Some people actually rely on their battery system<\/a> to run fire pumps, internet and security measures. Although you would need a very gutsy system<\/a>, electric pumps are far more reliable and easier to start remotely than a petrol or diesel pump.<\/p>\n

My advice is to consider your particular position. Nobody wants to see people hurt if they’re responding to an emergency, but that could mean turning the mains off and leaving outside lights on to guide those who are trying to put out a blaze or seek shelter.<\/p>\n

\"A

A warning from Energy Safe Victoria shared on social media.<\/p><\/div>\n

What If You Aren’t Evacuating?<\/h2>\n

You may want to disconnect your battery system from a potentially unstable grid during an emergency. However you’ll be denying the grid support it could well need from your solar.<\/p>\n

In any event, keep your consumption under control and bear in mind the grid might become the backup generator you need on day two or three of an extended emergency.<\/p>\n

Aggregated together, every solar power system is helping reduce overall demand by something like 15-18%. It helps make the whole network more reliable and without it the wheels could well fall off the grid.<\/p>\n

In the past we have seen particular events<\/a> where network operators have called for people to turn off their solar power, however these have been technical<\/em> emergencies where too much of a good thing is making life difficult for the grid.<\/p>\n

Most natural disasters are a different beast. During Cyclone Alfred last year, Energy Queensland were instructing people to turn solar power off,<\/a>\u00a0 for no good reason. They were simply creating confusion, especially for people who’d invested in a battery for emergency power. They weren’t extending the same advice to people who had plugged in a backup generator.<\/p>\n

One key thing to remember with bushfires is that they can effectively make day into night, so your solar can be rendered pretty useless by thick clouds of smoke<\/a>, or indeed heavy cloud cover that follows a tropical storm or cyclone.<\/p>\n

An Abundance Of Caution<\/h2>\n

If you have standard grid connected solar then it will shut itself down if the authorities turn off the power. The only good reason to turn off the system yourself would be to prevent a grid fault damaging your inverter.<\/p>\n

It’s possible a falling branch could short circuit transmission onto distribution lines, and if that happens, 11,000volts will likely fry everything in the house. So if you’re risk averse you can switch your inverter (and everything else in the main switchboard) off to protect it.<\/p>\n

Batteries Are Beautiful<\/h2>\n

If you’re lucky enough to have a battery, the first thing you should do is make sure the installation has been properly set up to give you protection from outages.<\/p>\n

Testing it should be as simple as flicking off the “Main Switch Normal Supply” (or for older installs it could be “Main Isolator Grid Supply”) and noting the lights stay on (or come back in 15 seconds)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"alternative

Turn the RED toggle off to disconnect from mains power. “Alternative” is the 2024 jargon for electricity furnished from<\/em> a battery system.<\/p><\/div>\n

Your electrician should have run you through this when they handed over the documentation at the end of the installation. If they didn’t, then ring up and get the service you’ve paid for.<\/p>\n

If There Is An Emergency<\/h2>\n

The second thing you might do is force the battery to charge to 100% from the grid. Systems like Tesla are automated and call this function “stormwatch” however many will need you to intervene with a change in settings via the monitoring app.<\/p>\n

This is especially important if you have a Virtual Power Plant<\/a> exercising external control. Nobody cares much about making $2 on the wholesale electricity market during a fire or flood.<\/p>\n

Summer Makes Energy Interesting<\/h2>\n

For years Australian energy systems have been most taxed in peak summer, driven by refrigeration and increasingly air conditioning of badly constructed, poorly designed, and oversized houses.<\/p>\n

Whether it’s the generation assets, boilers, turbines, alternators, pumps & associated systems, or distribution, the transformers, switch yards, power lines & connections, in high summer heat everything is more prone to failure.<\/p>\n

And it’s not just the environmental heat, it’s electrical heat from the inside, due to high current loads. I’ve seen cases where energy network office staff have literally been dragged out to substations, given a deckchair, hat and a hose and told to spray water on overworked transformers to get them through the afternoon.<\/p>\n

TINGLING TAPS CAN KILL<\/h2>\n
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Be Aware<\/strong><\/p>\n

If the power supply to your house develops a poor connection (sometimes called a loose neutral)\u00a0<\/em>then everything in the house connected to the earth circuit can become live. <\/strong>The metal case of any appliance may give you a shock.<\/p>\n