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My friend Nick lives off grid in North Alabama with his son and daughter. We had some weather a while back and his home was hit by lightning. Interestingly, and/or tragically depending on how you look at things, the lightning hit the riser where the utility power line connects. It caught the garage on fire but luckily he was able to contain it to just the garage. The fire took out most of his power equipment, including his batteries, inverter, charge controller and 4 out of 6 of his PV panels. We have been waiting to hear from his insurance, which he did today. They are going to cover damages to the structure but they claim that since he was not connected to utility power, they can't cover his electrical equipment. I think it's bunk and he should get a lawyer.
I loaned him my batteries, inverter, and charge controller from my cabin. The church bought him a generator. We've got him online with his two remaining solar panels, minimally. He has to use the generator for the well pump, where his old inverter did the job.
I said all that to say this: If anyone has any old equipment they would care to donate to help this man, it would be much appreciated and welcomed. He is disabled on a fixed income and simply can't just replace it all at once.
Thanks for reading.
Insurance companies, 🙄, try to wriggle out of any claim. One doesn't need an active electricity account to have wires entering the premises. In all likelihood the electricity company would charge a fee to take the lead-in down! Presumably the insurance company would be quite happy to pay out if he just had a metal pole stuck to the side of his house instead of the power line riser pole. Yeah, fat chance of that.
Good luck to your friend. Hope he eventually gets his just payout.