The power outages “opened people’s eyes to disaster preparedness and how important it is,” said Ed Lynch, a real estate broker with a home in Napa County. After PG&E cut his power three times this year, he looked into solar panels and backup batteries for his three-bedroom house. The price tag: $61,000.

“I’m definitely going to do it,” he said.

Solar panels are popular in California, but are tied to the grid and require back-up batteries to keep electricity running during a blackout. Big solar companies promoted their systems during the shutoffs, with Elon Musk offering $1,000 discounts for Tesla Inc.’s solar and Powerwall battery backup for residents affected by wildfire outages.

Brian Urey, a resident of Marin’s Mill Valley, decided to add backup batteries to his home in August after hearing about PG&E’s plans for scheduled service interruptions. The two Tesla Powerwalls plus installation and permits cost him more than $18,000, he said. (He expects to get about $6,000 back in tax credits.) Everything was up and running in September, in time for the most severe part of fire season.

As many of Urey’s neighbors went dark in October, he continued life as normal, watching TV, doing laundry and running the dishwasher. “It was flawless,” he said. He had a couple of friends without power over for dinner and let his neighbor plug an extension cord into his house to charge phones and turn on a lamp. That neighbor is now having their house outfitted with Tesla solar panel and backup batteries, Urey said.

Installing solar panels or large generators is mainly an option for people who own their homes, excluding the millions of renters in California’s pricey housing market. As inequality in the state grows more extreme, backup power systems will be just one more issue that widens the gap, said Reed Walker, associate professor of business and public policy and economics at the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

“The current state of adaptation, which is currently ‘I hope you can afford a generator or Tesla Powerwall’, is misguided,” Walker said. If nothing changes in the future, “there’d be enormous disparities in the way that people go about their day-to-day lives.”

Still, there are products for everyone, said Generac’s Jagdfeld. The cheaper portable generators have enough power to charge phones and even keep a refrigerator running in some cases. And they can be used by renters, too.

Sally Benson, director of Stanford’s Global Climate & Energy Project, said she’s more concerned that people may end up using backup power for more than just emergencies, causing greater harm to the environment.

“This idea that you can just be off the grid, we are hearing that more and more,” Benson said. “Under those circumstances the power you’re consuming actually has higher carbon intensity and pollution than the good as a whole.”