svetz
Works in theory! Practice? That's something else
Watching the videos and found some interesting things:
- the encharge is designed to have water (rain) run through a part of it as the IQ8s are NEMA 6 (underwater) and it doesn't matter how wet they are. The other electronics (and presumably battery) are in a water tight NEMA 3r enclosure.
- You can daisy-chain them together, but restricted to a max of 8 gauge (max 40 amps).
- The envoy is the "brains" that tell the batteries if they should be charging or discharging.
- The IQ8s can operate in Grid-Tied (current source for TOU) or Grid-Forming (voltage source to supplement load) mode. Sounds like the Envoy switches it back and forth depending on the situation.
- Communication to the batteries is via the Envoy.
- A 10 kW Encharge is physically three 3.3 kW Encharge units. The downside of this is that the batteries in the 10 kW are not shared...each is discrete. So, if you want to add a DIY 10 kW battery to one of them you'll be limited to 1280W inverter it has. To get the 3840W from the inverter for that 10 kWh you'd have to augment all 3 sub units.
- Losing the internet connection can affect the warranty (sounds like you have to be offline for over a year).
- The Enpower reports grid and Encharge frequency to the Envoy, the Envoy has the brains to tell the batteries to adjust.
- The IQ8s in grid forming mode are responsible for stabilizing voltage and frequency to what Envoy specified.
- A cellular modem is required (although I don't believe this was quoted in my system...so old data?).
- IQ8s in Grid forming mode are fast (20 ns) in terms of supplying current/voltage, much faster than power curtailment which is 2-3s and controlled by the Envoy.
- They have smart breakers in their lab: Alexa: You only have 15 minutes power left, should I turn off your air conditioner?
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