The short answer, before the FAQ down below. A portable generator wired through an interlock or manual transfer switch is the right first step for most Baldwin County homes. A whole-home standby with an automatic transfer switch is the right answer if you cannot be without power, do not want to run the generator yourself, or plan to keep the central AC on through a multi-day outage. Baldwin EMC members have a third option most competitor pages will not mention: GenerLink.
Wave Electric installs all three.
Jimmy will tell you plainly which one fits your house.
Three ways to power a house that lost the grid
| Setup | What it powers | How it ties in | When utility comes back | Permit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whole-home standby | Whole house, including central AC when sized for it | Automatic transfer switch beside the main panel, permanently installed generator on a pad | ATS senses stable grid, waits, transfers back, shuts the generator down. You do nothing. | Electrical permit for the ATS and tie-in. Separate gas or propane permit. |
| Portable + interlock or manual transfer switch | Selected circuits up to what the generator can carry. Central AC usually no. | Outdoor inlet, feeder to the panel, interlock plate or manual transfer switch | You flip the interlock back, shut off the generator, put it away | Electrical permit for the inlet, feeder and interlock |
| GenerLink (Baldwin EMC members) | Whatever the portable can carry, drawn from the whole panel with no circuit-picking | Meter-socket device installed between the meter and the meter base | GenerLink auto-disconnects from the grid when a generator is plugged in, and reconnects when unplugged | Coordinated through Baldwin EMC. Their crew swaps the meter. |
Baldwin EMC GenerLink FAQ; NEC 702
Two of those are in every Alabama contractor’s van. The third is worth naming because a lot of Baldwin County homes are eligible for it and their owners have no idea it exists. Most have never heard of it.
The villain: backfeeding a dryer outlet
This is the part where we take a position. There is no “safe” homeowner backfeed. None. Every real path from the generator to the panel runs through an interlock kit, a manual transfer switch, an automatic transfer switch, or a GenerLink. Anything else is illegal in Baldwin County, and it is on the short list of things a city inspector fails on sight. On sight, first look.
How bad Baldwin County outages actually get
Ivan is the ceiling. Sally, in 2020, is closer to what most homeowners on the coast are actually planning against. Baldwin EMC lost 78,146 members at Sally’s peak and took ten days to restore every serviceable meter, with 1,100 lineworkers on the system and 750 of them borrowed from other co-ops. Ten days. A generator plan is not paranoia in this county. It is a math problem the last five hurricane seasons already solved.
When a standby earns its place
If you have a well pump, a septic pump, medical equipment, someone who cannot ride out August without AC, or a short-term rental on Ono Island you cannot afford to refund, a whole-home standby is not a luxury. It is infrastructure. A hot rental with no AC is a refund and a bad review at the same time.
The other honest case for standby is habit. If nobody in the house is going to walk out into the yard at 2 a.m. to start a portable, the generator that does not start itself will not run. An automatic transfer switch removes the human from the loop. Removes the human, removes the failure point. That is worth the money if the human was the failure point.
When portable and interlock is the smarter spend
If the house is empty when the storm comes and stays empty until you get back, a whole-home standby sits in coastal humidity for years doing nothing. Years of nothing. A portable generator with a properly wired interlock covers a fridge, a few fans, some lights, the well pump and the internet when you are home. The money you did not spend on standby goes somewhere useful.
Fuel is the other reason to think portable through. Gasoline is the hardest fuel to plan around on the coast, because the stations that still have power after a storm are the ones with lines to the highway. Plan on stored, stabilized fuel for 48 to 72 hours if you go portable. Store it dry.
Propane is friendlier. A standby on a properly sized tank plus a second tank stashed for storm season will run for days without a refill, which matters when the propane company’s truck cannot get down your road for a week. A week is not rare.
Sizing to the AC compressor
There is no honest single number for “how big a generator.” Anyone who quotes one over the phone is guessing. The real method: Jimmy adds the running watts of everything you want on at once, adds the starting watts of the largest motor load (usually the AC compressor or the well pump), and sizes the unit to carry both without living at full throttle. Not near full throttle either.
Central AC on the Gulf Coast is almost always the biggest single load in the house. A small portable will not start a 3-ton or 4-ton compressor. Full stop. A larger portable sometimes will, with a soft-start device on the AC to knock the inrush current down. A whole-home standby is generally sized so the AC runs the way it always does, along with the rest of the house.
If you have a well and a septic pump, add them into the sizing conversation up front, not after the pad is poured. Up front. Same for a tankless electric water heater or an EV charger you plan to use during an outage. Older panels sometimes need a panel upgrade before transfer gear can go in cleanly, and the AC circuit itself has to be wired to survive the switchover. Both get quoted together, not after.
Permits, by city
Every Baldwin County city requires an electrical permit for the transfer switch and the panel tie-in. The utility will not reconnect after panel work without one on file. Which city issues it depends on where you live: the full breakdown lives in who issues your electrical permit in Baldwin County. A quick tour of what matters most for generator work:
- Orange Beach files the electrical portion as a trade work permit through the online Permit Portal. Baldwin EMC is the utility.
- Gulf Shores requires every new and upgraded service to be underground and inspects the trench before backfill. If the install touches the service, that shapes the day. More on the Gulf Shores service area page.
- Foley has issued electrical permits only to state-certified electrical contractors since 2010.
- Fairhope owns its utility. Permits go through the building department on South Section Street.
The gas or propane connection to a standby is a separate permit and a separate trade in most cities. Wave Electric handles the electrical, coordinates timing with the gas contractor, and lines the inspection sequence up so the unit gets commissioned when the pad and fuel are both ready.
This season’s notes
Standby lead times for the 2026 season are back to reasonable on most brands, but they tighten the day the first named storm enters the Gulf. If a whole-home unit is on the plan for this year, the pad and the permit are the pieces to move now. Now, not July. After-hours calls during named storms go straight to Jimmy and dispatch at emergency rates.
Ready to talk it through
Every house is different. The right generator depends on your panel, your fuel, what you need to keep running, and how much of it you want to happen automatically. Call Jimmy at 251-656-4601 for a free estimate, from your home to your business, across Baldwin County.
