From Car Batteries to Commercial Solar: Building Off-Grid Power Knowledge Before It Was Popular

Before solar became an industry, before grid-tied systems, incentives, or sleek lithium batteries, power resilience meant figuring things out yourself.

This episode traces the real origins of Alexis Lewis’s solar and electrical expertise, starting not in New York City, but in Antigua, where frequent power outages made energy independence a necessity not a trend.

In the early 1970s, when Alexis’s father built their family home, it was designed with two electrical systems:

A standard AC utility-fed network

A separate DC backup network, powered initially by car batteries

This was long before residential solar was accessible. That early DC system laid the foundation for understanding load separation, redundancy, storage limitations, and power discipline lessons that still apply to modern solar and battery systems today.

As photovoltaic technology became available locally, those backup systems evolved into true off-grid solar installations, using:

Early low-wattage PV panels (20–50W modules)

Heavy, transformer-based inverters

Lead-acid battery banks, including Trojan T-105 deep-cycle batteries

Manual electrolyte maintenance, balancing, and strict load management

Every system was custom. Nothing was plug-and-play. Components were mixed across manufacturers, charge controllers were tuned by hand, and mistakes were expensive. This wasn’t theoretical learning it was practical, consequence-driven experience.

That early off-grid exposure shaped how Alexis approaches solar today. Whether evaluating a commercial rooftop in New York City or advising on remote, island, or rural systems, the mindset is the same:

Understand the loads first

Respect system limits

Design for failure, not perfection

Avoid assumptions that look good on paper but fail in the field

This episode also explains how that early foundation connects to:

Multi-trade construction experience

Commercial solar leadership in NYC

Consulting for off-grid and hybrid systems across different regions

If you already have an off-grid or hybrid system or you’re considering one and want straight answers without sales pressure this episode lays out what actually matters and what most people overlook.