James is explaining how the system will automatically restart itself using solar power alone if the batteries drain completely and the generator runs out of fuel. "It's called Sunlight JumpStart," he says. "Next morning when the sun comes up, the system reboots itself and starts charging again."
I nod. Planning for the scenario where your backup power fails and your backup backup power fails and you're waiting for sunrise to restore electricity is apparently just sensible preparation now.
We're standing in his garage in a suburb north of Houston, looking at the 40 kWh battery system being installed next week. Next to it, a new natural gas generator sits waiting for connection. The whole setup—solar panels, batteries, generator, control systems—is costing him around $95,000. With the federal tax credit that expires December 31st, it's $66,500.
"I know how that sounds," James says. "But I'm not a prepper. I'm just done pretending the grid is going to get better."
When the Math Changed
James and his wife bought this house in 2019. Standard suburban four-bedroom, good schools, reasonable commute. They knew Houston had hurricane risk, but that felt manageable. Everybody has some kind of weather risk.
Then came the February 2021 freeze. They lost power for four days. The house got down to 42 degrees inside. They slept in the living room with their two kids, everyone in sleeping bags, trying to keep the pipes from freezing. Their neighbors with a generator kept their heat on. James and his family just waited.
"That's when I started thinking about it. Not just about getting a generator. About whether I wanted to keep depending on a system that could fail that badly."
He didn't do anything about it for three years. Thought about it, researched it, ran the numbers. But the cost felt too high, and the freeze felt like a once-in-a-generation event. The grid would improve. It wouldn't happen again.
Then 2024 had the second-highest customer outages in 15 years. And more than 220 gigawatts of new projects—mostly data centers—requested grid connection, a 170% increase since January. The grid wasn't getting better. It was being asked to do more while remaining just as vulnerable.
"I realized I was waiting for things to improve that were never going to improve," James says. "So I stopped waiting."
What Independence Actually Looks Like
James walks me through the technical details because they matter to him: the Enphase IQ Battery 5P system that delivers 15.4 kVA of power—enough to start his central AC unit, which is the biggest single load in his house. The 40 kWh of battery capacity means he can run his whole house for about 24 hours without sun or generator, or stretch it to 36 hours if they're careful. The load control features automatically manage what's running based on available power.
| System Component | Power Draw | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Central AC | 3-4 kW | Biggest single load |
| Refrigerator | 150W continuous | Always running |
| Water heater | Variable | High intermittent load |
| Washer/Dryer | Variable | Schedulable loads |
"Forty kilowatt-hours sounds like a lot until you start adding up what actually uses power," he says. "AC is 3-4 kW when it's running. Refrigerator is another 150 watts continuous. Water heater, washer, dryer. It adds up fast."
On a cloudy week in summer, even 40 kWh of batteries might not be enough. The generator fills the gap, running for a few hours to recharge the batteries when solar production is low and household demand is high.
But what he keeps coming back to is the responsibility.
"I'm the utility company now. When something breaks, I fix it. When we use more power than we have, I decide what to turn off. That's the trade."
The Harder Conversation
His wife was harder to convince. She wanted to know what happens if the system fails. What happens if they miscalculate their power needs. What happens if the generator breaks during an extended outage.
"She kept asking: what if we go off-grid and it's worse than staying connected?" James says. "What if we're sitting in the dark because our batteries died and the generator won't start, and everyone else has power because the grid came back?"
That's a legitimate fear. Going off-grid means accepting that your backup systems are all you have. No calling the utility to complain. No waiting for someone else to fix it.
But then she started thinking about it differently.
"She said: okay, but what if the grid doesn't come back? What if it's down for a week, or two weeks, and we're just waiting like everyone else? At least with our own system, we're doing something."
What convinced her wasn't the technology or the cost analysis. It was realizing that staying connected to the grid meant accepting that they had no control. Going off-grid meant accepting different risks, but risks they could at least try to manage.
"She still worries about it," James says. "But now she worries about whether we sized the system right, not about whether ERCOT will keep the lights on. That feels like progress."
The Maintenance He's Accepting
Every three months, James will need to test the generator. Once a year, it needs professional maintenance. The batteries have a 15-year warranty, but they'll degrade over time. After 10 years, they might only hold 70% of their original capacity. The solar panels need cleaning. The monitoring system needs attention.
"I'm not pretending this is easier," he says. "It's more work. But it's work I can do something about."
He's already planned for fuel storage. The generator runs on natural gas from the municipal line, so he doesn't need to stockpile gasoline. But he's also bought a 500-gallon propane tank as backup, just in case natural gas supply gets disrupted during an emergency. That's another $2,000 he didn't include in the initial cost estimate.
The complexity keeps expanding. Every solution creates a new dependency to manage. James sees that as the point. "I'd rather have dependencies I understand and can control than dependencies on systems I can't."
What He Expects to Learn
After December 31st, the same system costs $28,500 more without the federal tax credit—making this decision feel both urgent and premature.
In six months, James will know whether he underestimated his summer power needs. Whether 40 kWh of batteries plus generator backup is actually enough to get through Houston's brutal summer without grid connection. Whether the system performs the way the installer promised.
In two years, he'll know whether going off-grid was worth the operational complexity. Whether the maintenance burden feels manageable or overwhelming. Whether his wife still thinks it was the right call, or whether she's exhausted from managing power consumption and testing generators.
In five years, he'll either be vindicated because the grid got worse and he's glad he got out, or he'll be wondering whether he overreacted. Whether he spent $66,500 on independence he didn't actually need.
What would make him reconsider? "If the system fails in a way I can't fix," he says. "If the batteries degrade faster than expected, or the generator needs constant repairs, or we're constantly running out of power because we undersized it. If managing our own power becomes more stressful than depending on the grid, then maybe we made the wrong call."
But he doesn't think that's going to happen. "I think in five years, we'll be sitting here with power while our neighbors are dealing with another outage. And we'll be glad we did this when the tax credit made it possible."
The Deadline That Forced It
James was planning to do this in 2026. Battery technology would improve, costs would come down. Then he learned the tax credit expires December 31st.
"That's $28,500 that disappears at midnight," he says. "I couldn't justify waiting and paying that much more for the same system."
So he's making a permanent decision about his power infrastructure under artificial time pressure. He's committing to operational responsibility for critical systems because waiting costs too much. He's betting that he can manage his own power supply better than ERCOT can manage the grid, and he's betting it right now, before he's entirely ready, because the deadline is real.
"Is it the right time? I don't know," he says. "But it's the time I have."
The Bet
We walk back outside to look at the solar panels being installed on his roof. The crew is finishing up the last array. By next week, the whole system will be operational. By January, James and his family will be completely independent from the Texas grid.
"I keep thinking about that freeze," he says. "Sitting in the cold with my kids, waiting for someone else to fix it. I don't want to do that again."
Going off-grid for him isn't a political statement about the grid or a prepper fantasy about collapse. He'd rather be responsible for his own power supply than dependent on a system he's watched fail.
The deadline is December 31st. After that, the same system costs $28,500 more. The grid will still be unreliable. The summers will still be brutal. And James will be sitting in his air-conditioned house, running on power he generated himself, managing systems he understands, accepting responsibility he chose.
Next summer, when Houston hits 100 degrees and the grid is stressed, he'll either be grateful he went off-grid or he'll be troubleshooting why his batteries aren't lasting as long as expected. He won't know which until he lives with this choice for a while. But at least it's his choice to live with.