So now it looks like he will be going full Enphase Ensemble. ...going to need something like 3 or 4 Encharge 10's.
If they have access to natural gas, it might make more sense to use a generator for outages and wait for the battery prices to come down. They only need enough battery power during peak rates for "critical" circuits (e.g., set the EV to charge after peak rates).
Sidenote: Been driving the EV a lot, finally had to fill up the other car, first time since last October... got sticker shock at the pump!
... communication issues with the batteries to the combiner. What kind of range does the system seem to have? Is the USB extension idea working?
It makes no sense, the zigbee dongle range should easily cover the distance. Yet, My fix only added +1 bar of signal strength. and the units are less than 15 feet apart.
Mine are generation 1, gen 2 has been out for a while and might do better. To be safe, I suggest running a USB extender cable in the conduit, see
this for maximum lengths and how to beat them.
Probably an Enphase question... How far can the powerline comm to the solar inverters be from the combiner?
It's a long long ways, one of the problems with Enphase is accidentally adding in the neighbor's microinverters.
I know Enphase wants a certain number of panels max on 20 amp circuits, but would it be ok to combine 3 x 20 amp branches at the roof,
The limits are because their "standard" microinverter cables aren't meant for over 20 amps, so the maximum number is based on the wattage output of the microinverters. But, it's common to run those to a roof-top combiner that has thicker gauge out and down off the roof. The IQ Combiner box still has a maximum back-plane capacity, so don't exceed that per box.
They might be interested in
voltage rise, a lot of installers seem to mess it up.
... would need to be like #3 or even #2 AWG wire. But would the Envoy be able to get the data over it? But would the Envoy be able to get the data over it?
Powerline doesn't care about the amps, it's only a "tap", very little current goes through it. Just as all the power joins together, so does the powerline signal. The envoy is plugged into the powerline via the backplane of an IQ Combiner via it's own breaker, so one connection point is good regardless of the number of IQ Combiner boxes used.