Home battery backup in Santa Cruz County
If you're starting from zero, start here. What a battery actually does when the power goes out, how long it really lasts, and whether you need solar to have one. Then go deeper on a specific system if you want to.
A home battery stores electricity and gives it back when you need it. When the grid goes down, it takes over — usually fast enough that you notice the lights flicker rather than go out — and it runs your house from stored power until it's empty or the grid comes back.
The question everyone asks first is how long it lasts, and the honest answer is that it depends entirely on what you're running, not on the number on the box. A battery carrying a fridge, your internet, some lights and phone charging will last a great deal longer than the same battery trying to run air conditioning and an electric dryer. This is why the first thing we do is ask what actually has to stay on — that list, not the house's square footage, is what sizing is built from.
You do not need solar to have a battery. It's less common, but it's a real and sensible thing to do: the battery charges from the grid when power is cheap or simply when it's available, and holds that charge for an outage. If you do have solar, the battery does a second job on top of backup — it stores your own production so you can use it yourself in the evening instead of exporting it, which under NEM 3.0 is the difference between getting retail value for your power and getting the utility's much lower avoided-cost credit.
We're a C-10 electrical contractor, and the battery is only part of what makes this work. The interconnection, the transfer equipment, and whether your existing panel can take any of it are electrical questions — and they're where these projects actually go wrong.
Exactly what we handle — and the two things you handle.
Sunrise provides
- Battery system from one of the three lines we're certified on — Tesla, FranklinWH, or Generac — chosen to fit your house rather than our preference
- All interconnection between the battery, your main panel, and the utility service
- Critical-loads subpanel where whole-home backup isn't the right answer, including moving the circuits that matter onto it
- Any panel or service work the interconnection turns up, quoted before we start rather than discovered halfway
- Mounting, conduit, disconnects and labelling to current California Electrical Code
- Building permit pulled and inspection coordinated, plus the PG&E interconnection application and permission-to-operate
- Commissioning with a real outage test, monitoring app set up, and equipment warranty registered
You provide
- Access to the panel, the meter, and the intended equipment location on the work day
- A clear list of what has to keep running — this is what sizing is built from
- Wi-Fi at the equipment location, so monitoring works from day one
- HOA or architectural approval where applicable
Start to finish, with real times.
Free home inspection and sizing
A tech looks at your panel, your service, and where the equipment could physically go, then works through what you actually want running when the power is out. That list is the whole design — it decides how many units you need and whether you're backing up the whole house or a critical-loads subpanel. You get a written report and a real number.
Permit and utility interconnection
We pull the building permit and file the interconnection application with PG&E. The paperwork is usually the long pole, not the labour — timelines vary across the county, and we tell you the realistic date rather than the optimistic one.
Install day
Equipment mounted and interconnected, any subpanel work done, conduit run and labelled. Your power is off for part of the day while we work at the service — we tell you which part in advance so you can plan around it.
Inspection, commissioning, and handover
Building-department inspection, then permission to operate from PG&E, then commissioning. We run a real outage test — cut the feed, watch it transfer, confirm it carries what you asked for — set up your monitoring app, register the equipment warranty, and walk you through what happens automatically and what doesn't.
Every quote is free. The range depends too much on your home to fake it.
We give you a real number at the free inspection rather than a range on a web page. Battery projects vary more than most electrical work — what you want backed up, where the equipment can physically go, how far it is from your panel, and whether your service can take it as-is are each large enough to move the total on their own. One thing to get straight before you budget: there is no federal tax credit on home battery storage for 2026 installs. Section 25D — the 30% residential credit that covered owned solar and standalone storage — terminated on 31 December 2025. If a quote or an article you're reading still assumes it, that assumption is out of date, and we'd rather you hear it from us than at tax time.
7 questions. Real answers.
Pulled from what we actually hear on quotes and on-site. If yours isn't here, ask us — we'll answer in plain English.
How long will a battery run my house?
Do I need solar to have a battery?
Battery or generator?
Whole-home backup or just some circuits?
Is there still a tax credit for battery storage?
Which brand should I get?
How long does the whole process take?
Here’s the honest path — wherever it leads.
We'd rather you get the right outcome than the Sunrise outcome. Some of this points away from us on purpose.
Outside Santa Cruz County?
Look for a CSLB-licensed C-10 contractor who is a certified installer for the system you're considering — certification is what governs warranty registration and parts access. Verify the licence at cslb.ca.gov, and check the quote includes the permit, the utility interconnection, and any panel work rather than adding them later.
Browse our field guidesWould a generator suit you better?
If you're in a PSPS zone, on a well, or need backup for days rather than hours, a standby generator may be the more honest answer. It's noisier and needs fuel, but duration is where it wins outright.
Standby generatorsNot sure a battery is the answer?
A free whole-home inspection tells you what your service can actually support and what backing up your house would really involve. You keep the written report either way, and about a third of these end with no work scheduled.
Schedule a free inspectionWe do this work everywhere in Santa Cruz County.
From Davenport to Pajaro Dunes, San Lorenzo Valley to Pleasure Point. Same crew, same warranty, same pricing.
Want to know what backing up your house would actually take?
Free on-site inspection, honest sizing, and a written quote. We'll tell you if a battery isn't the right answer for your house.