digital or magnetic ballast ok to run on modified sine wave inverter?

I want to invest in some solar panels/batteries/inverter to offset some electricity cost (I already know its very expensive up front and takes a long time to pay back, thats not the debate here).

my parents house down in mexico they run cheap modified sine wave inverters and we run tv's, dvd players, computers, phone chargers, lamps, etc... and I know all that works fine. I am wondering if I can get away with running a pair of 600W digital or magnetic ballasts off a 2000 watt (4000 surge) modified sine wave inverter? because you can get one of those for under 200 bucks where a true sine wave inverter is almost 500 bucks for the same current capacity.

I tried google but dont get results that help me at all, mostly just sites talking about inverters, not running HID ballasts on inverters.

oh, and another reason I want to have the lights on solar, is that the power company knows not only how much power Ive used in the month, but its broken down by the hour, so Id rather not have my lights on the grid for the power company to see that my power usage spikes for a straight 12 hour period once a day... lol