Battery backup & solar · Riviera Maya
Battery vs. generator
Why we install batteries instead of a generator.
A generator is a good answer to a different question. For a home you actually live in — or rent out — the trade-offs almost always land the same way.
| Whole-house UPS battery | Standby generator | |
|---|---|---|
| Time to switch over | Approximately 20–30 milliseconds, depending on configuration — under 20 on a single unit, under 30 with two in parallel. A brief blink; most appliances, A/C and pumps carry straight on. | 10–30 seconds of darkness while it cranks and stabilises. |
| Noise | Silent at rest. A fan spins up under heavy load — and it lives indoors, not under a bedroom window. | 60–75 dB in the garden, all night, whether you're drawing 200 W or 5 kW. |
| Fuel | None. It recharges itself from the grid, or from solar. | Diesel or LP — stored on site, and delivered exactly when everyone else wants it too. |
| Where it lives | Indoors, on a wall — bodega, garage or service patio. Out of the salt air. | Outdoors on a pad, exposed to sea air and requiring clearance and venting. |
| HOA & neighbours | Nothing to approve, nothing to complain about. | Frequently restricted by condo regimes and residential HOAs. |
| Maintenance | An annual health check. No oil, no filters, no test runs. | Oil, filters, coolant, battery, and a weekly self-test you will hear. |
| If the equipment itself fails | The grid passes straight through, as though the system were not there. You still have CFE. | You discover it will not start during the outage, in the dark. |
| Voltage protection | Always on — conditions sags and spikes even when the grid is up. | None. It only helps once power is fully gone. |
| Solar | Pairs directly with panels now or later. | Separate system, separate cost. |
Straight answer on the trade-off: a battery's runtime is finite. A generator will run for as long as you feed it. That's why we size the system to your actual measured load — and why every system we install is built solar-ready, so an extended outage can recharge from the sun instead of from the grid.
What stays on
You choose what stays on.
The 3 kW system runs on one leg of your panel, and you pick which circuits live on it — these are what people choose. The split-phase 8 and 12 kW systems can support both 120/240 V legs from a single unit, which covers the whole house, subject to your electrical design and load audit. The other decision worth making is the air conditioning: keep it on the backup and you get a few hours; leave it off and the same batteries run everything else all night while you sleep with fans.
- Internet & StarlinkWork calls and streaming carry on through the outage.
- LightingInterior, palapa and perimeter lighting, unflickering.
- Fridge & freezerNo spoiled food, no ruined compressor restart.
- Cameras, alarm & gateThe house stays watched and the gate still opens.
- Water pressure pumpShowers and toilets keep working — the one people forget.
- Minisplits & A/CInverter units carried through the night, not just for an hour.
- Pool pump & filtrationCirculation keeps running so the water doesn't turn.
- Elevator & cistern pumpHeavy starting loads — usually wants both legs covered.
Free site visit
Find out what your house actually needs.
Send a WhatsApp with your town and roughly what you'd like to keep running. We'll tell you what it takes and what it costs — and if a smaller system is the right answer, we'll tell you that too.