What happens when the grid goes down
A grid-tied system without storage disconnects during an outage. People reasonably assume that panels plus sunshine equals electricity, and it is much better to learn otherwise now than during a storm week.
If keeping part of the house running matters, ask any installer to be specific rather than general. Which circuits stay live, for how long at a realistic load, and does the battery recharge from the array while the grid is down. Those differences compound over several days.
Be concrete about what you want to carry. A system keeping a fridge, some lighting and a few outlets running for days is a very different proposition from one attempting to run central air conditioning, and that conversation belongs before the contract.
Ask how a battery sized for outage cover compares with one sized for everyday bill savings, because they are frequently not the same system and knowing which you are being quoted is essential before comparing prices.
Storm exposure, hardware and your insurer
Ask what the mounting is specified to withstand, how attachments are detailed, and whether the installer has done coastal work in this part of Florida before. An installer who works here regularly will answer without hesitation.
Ask where the inverter and any battery would be sited and how that placement relates to your property's exposure to flooding. Equipment location is a design decision made once, so raise it deliberately rather than leaving it to convenience.
Talk to your home insurer before installation. Ask whether a rooftop array and any battery are covered under your policy, whether either changes your premium or your deductible, and what documentation they want on file afterwards. Wind and hurricane deductibles are frequently a percentage of insured value rather than a flat amount.
Keep every document the project produces. On a storm-exposed property, the paperwork showing what was installed and that it was permitted and inspected is part of the asset, and it is what a future buyer's insurer will want to see.
The everyday economics, kept separate
Resilience is one reason to buy and the everyday arithmetic is another, and they should be discussed separately rather than blended into a single number. Only one of them goes honestly into a spreadsheet.
Florida investor-owned utilities credit excess solar at the retail rate and roll it forward monthly under Rule 25-6.065, with an annual true-up at the lower avoided-cost rate. Systems are generally sized to no more than 115 percent of annual usage.
Ask what percentage of your annual usage the proposed system covers, ask for the design to be built from your last twelve months of bills, and ask how the annual true-up was treated in the projection.
Then ask for the battery to be costed on its own: what it adds, what it saves on the bill if anything, and what it delivers during an outage. Those are three separate answers and a quote that gives one combined figure has hidden two of them.
Your association cannot say no, and the annual true-up to plan for
Florida Statute 163.04 provides that a deed restriction, covenant, declaration or similar binding agreement may not prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting solar collectors from being installed, and that a property owner may not be denied permission by any entity granted the power to approve, forbid, control or direct alteration of property.
An association keeps one power: it may determine where on the roof collectors go, within an orientation to the south or within 45 degrees east or west of due south, and only if that does not impair their effective operation. If a proposed relocation would cost meaningful production, ask your installer to model both placements and put the difference in writing.
On the utility side, Florida investor-owned utilities credit excess solar at the retail rate and roll it forward monthly under Rule 25-6.065, with an annual true-up at the utility's lower avoided-cost rate, and systems are generally sized to no more than 115 percent of annual usage. Building deliberately large to bank credit gives value away once a year.
Confirm which utility serves your address before applying any of that, since municipal electric utilities and rural electric cooperatives set their own net metering policies and credit rates. And note that the 30 percent Residential Clean Energy Credit under Section 25D expired for property placed in service after December 31, 2025, so a purchase now receives no federal credit.