People in the sun belt typically have huge solar systems because there's a lot of sun. It's economically feasible to collect that solar power and offset the high costs of air conditioning. They can even produce a surplus to sell to the power company.
If you want to go "off the grid" then you need batteries to store the energy. It's a different model. But solar power is very reliable and not that difficult to throw together a decent system as an emergency backup.
When I lived in a trailer without any power or running water I got an 800 amp marine battery from Walmart. And an 80 watt solar panel. The battery is enough to power a couple of LED lights, phone charger, laptop and modem.
On cloudy days one panel wasn't always enough for me. But instead of buying more panels I used the generator to give my battery a good bulk charge once in a while. All in I have under $1000 in gear and I'm good.
I cook and heat water on an old Coleman stove. Boiling your water is really important because very often when the power goes down we get boil water advisories.
For heavy loads like the fridge or the furnace I run the generator.It doesn't need to be left running all day.
In a real emergency you're better off with simple stuff like a few panels, an RV battery, and a small generator that's easy to fix and doesn't use a lot of fuel. You can carry this shit in your and schlep it through the woods if you have to.
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