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 | Under 20 milliseconds on a single unit, under 30 with two in parallel. A brief blink; 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.
One inverter carries one leg of your panel, and you pick which circuits live on it — these are what people choose. Add a second inverter and both legs are covered, which is the whole house. 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 continue uninterrupted.
- 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.