Your solar system shuts down. This surprises a lot of people, and it is worth understanding before you buy rather than during your first outage.
A standard grid-connected system stops producing the moment the grid goes down, even in bright sunshine. This is deliberate and it is a safety requirement, not a fault. If your system kept exporting power into the local network during an outage, it would energise lines that linemen are working on believing them to be dead. Anti-islanding protection prevents that, and every compliant grid-tied inverter has it.
So if you want power during cuts, you need more than panels. There are three arrangements.
Grid-tied, which is what most people install. Cheapest, best payback, qualifies for the full subsidy, and produces nothing during an outage. For homes with reasonably stable supply, this is the right choice and the additional cost of backup is not justified.
Hybrid, meaning a grid-tied system with a hybrid inverter and a battery. Critical loads continue running through a cut. The inverter is more expensive and the battery is a separate and substantial cost, typically Rs 70,000 to Rs 1.2 lakh for a 5 to 10 kWh pack. Crucially, batteries are not subsidised under PM Surya Ghar at all. The subsidy applies to the solar system; storage is entirely out of pocket.
Off-grid, meaning batteries carry your whole load with no grid connection. This is for farms and remote sites. It is explicitly excluded from the PM Surya Ghar scheme, and it is the most expensive way to power a house that already has a connection. If someone is selling you off-grid while promising the subsidy, they are wrong.
What about my existing inverter battery? Many Indian homes already have an inverter and battery for cuts. That system and a grid-tied solar system solve different problems and can coexist: the solar reduces your bill, the inverter handles outages. Plenty of NCR households keep exactly this arrangement, and it is often the most economical answer if you already own the inverter. What you cannot do is assume the solar will charge that battery unless the system was designed for it.
If you decide you want backup. Specify a hybrid inverter at installation even if you intend to add the battery later. Retrofitting a hybrid inverter afterwards costs considerably more than choosing one at the outset. And size the battery to your genuinely critical loads, meaning lights, fans, router and perhaps a fridge, rather than to your whole house. Sizing for everything is how battery costs spiral.
The honest recommendation for most NCR homes. If your supply is reasonably stable, install grid-tied, take the full subsidy, and enjoy the shortest payback. If cuts are a daily reality, a hybrid system is genuinely transformative, but go in knowing the battery is unsubsidised and will lengthen your payback considerably.
One thing worth checking on any quotation. Ask explicitly whether the inverter being quoted is grid-tied only or hybrid-capable. The price difference is not enormous at purchase and it preserves your options.
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Last updated 27 July 2026 · Reviewed by the RenSetu team