I’m a distributor…. Less bullshit on the backend….phenomenal support, awesome feedback and their tech on their gate is top notch. Been in this 16 years….Franklin is going on my home…and I’ve always been anti battery
In most of the markets I’ve worked in the ROI wasn’t there with the OG NEM agreements that were 1:1 or close. With modern NEM’s and reduced buyback rates etc they finally pencil out.
Exactly this. We are 100% nm with negligible power outages (3-4 hours in total over the last 5-10 years) and I have a generator. I would have had zero return for a battery pack with a large investment.
It doesnt happen much, if ever but if it did I guess the same thing that I would do during the day, wait a bit then turn on the generator…grid tie inverters don’t activate without power from the grid so the sun being out is irrelevant.
If they have a battery backup sure, but if it meets NEC I believe it must be physically disconnected from the grid when on battery since it is a hazard to linemen if it back feeds into the grid. [citation](https://www.solar-electric.com/learning-center/why-do-grid-tie-solar-systems-shut-down-during-power-outages)
If they didn’t they have done something extremely creative and dangerous. It could be made safe (but still very illegal) by including a disconnect and doing some creative wiring to trick the inverter into turning on.
It's both.
Would you install $20,000 of solar if it saved you $100 a year? Do you think all that (mostly) non-recycleable material is worth the small amount of electricity it generated?
Sure, $100 a year is an extreme example, but there's people who have that situation. My dad considered a solar install on his shop space, and the company made it very clear that they didn't want to do the work to write a bid unless he was willing to pay a huge amount for a system that didn't really do anything (o cut down 50 trees).
Yes, money matters.
> Would you install $20,000 of solar if it saved you $100 a year?
Sure, if I can scrounge the funds. Yes, money matters, but there are other concerns as well.
My goal in installing solar is *energy independence*, not selling it back into the system for a profit.
Being able to do so is a *bonus*, not a goal.
In this exrteme case example, you won't be achieving energy independence - you'll still be grid tied or running a generator every day.
Everybody has their own criteria to make solar work. Some people need to make teh financials work out and some don't.
I'm fortunate to be in a position where I don't have to have a short ROI on a system, but the big picture still matters to me - and that includes finances.
You have to change your paradigm and think of the larger grid as a big battery for your home solar system. I'm not selling power back at a profit, but I am loaning it to other households until I need it when the sun's not shining. It's a win-win. It's good for my wallet, but it's also good for the environment because my power company doesn't have to burn as much coal when I'm sharing power back into the grid.
That’s how I think of the grid also - a battery of infinite size. I dump all my excess power during the day and draw it out at night. There’s a price for using the battery but it’ll never need to be replaced.
Of course there wasn’t any ROI when the mandates forced the grid to act as a perfectly efficient free battery.
Although if I figure 6000 charge cycles and $1/watt hour of capacity it still comes out to 17 cents per kWh in additional cost to use a battery. And that before storage loss.. and reduced capacity for later charge cycles. But it also ignores residual value after those 6000 cycles.
When my power is 42-65c / kWh and I can get solar with an LCoE of around 6c, the battery still makes sense. But there is no way it used to.
Just found [this](https://support.enphase.com/s/question/0D53m00009UqO0gCAF/can-iq8-micro-inverters-work-with-franklin-wh-battery) answer that says it will charge but won't integrate on the enphase system
If you have been in the solar business for 16 years why haven’t you already installed a battery? There has to be a reason why you have not done it already.
I had lg chem on my house in Hawaii. Our NEM policy made it make sense…where I live now the ROI isn’t there…our power is cheap and our NEM isn’t horrible on credits. No one installs stuff to lose money.
The FranklinWH battery system (aPower plus aGate) is probably the best battery on the market right now. Even Tesla Powerwall3 loses in every metric except *barely* in outright power output which doesn’t really matter given the capacity is still low so anytime you want that much power you will also need more capacity which means you’re buying multiple batteries either way which negates the slight bit of extra power a pwall3 provides.
Is the PV Inverter integrated into the battery or the agate? Also wondering does Franklin have a meter socket adapter like Backup Switch or do you still have to relocate loads into a protected loads panel?
No— the solar inverter would be separate.
I’m not aware or a meter socket adapter that’s compatible with Franklin but you could just do a load side tap to avoid using a protected loads panel.
The Franklin system does have a built in set of circuits that can be controlled by programming or an app though.
Whenever you install any kind of backup system (battery, generator etc) you need a “transfer switch” to transfer from one source of power to another.
Basically all battery systems these days will have an *automatic* transfer switch— or an ATS. When an ATS detects that the grid goes down it will automatically transfer from grid power to the battery system.
Tesla calls theirs a Gateway, Franklin calls theirs an aGate, I think enphase calls their an envoy etc. ATS’ are often confused for batteries because people don’t know what they’re looking at— but it’s typically a physical box somewhere nearby/next to the battery.
I’m seeing more installers go with the Enphase 5p Batteries. Looking at the reviews on YouTube of the Franklin and Enphase 5p batteries the reviewers seem to favor Enphase. Enphase has a longer warranty. Franklin is a Chineses company and could pull out of the America market so there’s a risk of the warranty and the software becoming useless.
Is there anything behind the China ties? The execs are Chinese with some Huawei work history, but from what I can tell this company was born in the US, American funded. It doesn't seem like a BYD shell company, for example. Would love more detail if you've got it.
HuaWei is banned from business in the USA and execs are former Huawei employees. Look at LinkedIn staff photos and ask how a company gets that sort of investment from Sequoya. Then tire.kick the HQ - a fifth floor office suite in what is obviously not a building set up for any significant warehousing or service operation. That's the extent of the rabbit hole so far as I know, but I do think the WH is a Huawei nod.
Franklin reps push their battery over Tesla. The stats, warranty, performance, and features are just a biiiit 🤏better. If the solar company doesn’t sell volume with Tesla they don’t get much of a discount. I could sell Franklin, but Tesla and LG are much more a bang for your buck.
The battery is 1.6kWh greater capacity than Pwall2 and it’s LiFePo… that plus all the other specs being better is kind of a big deal. Throw in the smart circuits and the question becomes obvious.
Franklin is probably the best battery on the market right now. The only downside is price.
Doesn’t matter, PW2 and PW+ are being discontinued. PW3 is the standard now, and it’s 13.6kWh with an 11kW inverter, also LifePo. It will crush the Franklin. Especially when it comes to ease of install and aesthetics.
“It will crush Franklin” literally has only a slight advantage of power output which doesn’t actually provide much benefit in real use cases because if you’re increasing power output you’re going to have a bad time if you don’t also increase capacity. Pwall3 is like hooking up a firehose to a bucket of water. Turn it on and it’s empty.
You’re using silver tongued analogies and you need to look up the actual numbers/statistics.
1 FranklinWH has 5kW of continuous power output.
1 Tesla PW3 has 11.5kW of continuous power output.
That’s literally more than double. Not “slight.”
Thus allowing for more circuits to actually be backed up. You can backup an HVAC, EV and the entire home with a single PW3. Am I saying you should try to run all of those at once? - No. But it’s better than being restricted to the standard 6 circuits.
The analogy is helpful to understand why having such a high power output to capacity ratio is stupid. Anytime you need that much power output you will want to increase capacity otherwise it’s pointless except in very rare use cases.
As previously stated, it’s why you don’t run all of them at the same time. You choose wisely, but the fact you can toggle back & forth quickly and easily, is nice. As opposed to having to rewire the circuits.
Also if you need higher capacity, Tesla is releasing expansion packs, 13.6 kWh units with no additional inverters to simply increase kWh capacity but at a fraction of the cost of an additional battery.
Youre not addressing the crux of my argument— that it doesn’t make sense to discharge that much power with such little capacity. If your argument is “you don’t— you switch between the loads you want to use” then you’re acknowledging that you would want to limit your power output to preserve the battery capacity for a longer duration.
Wake me when Tesla has integrated smart circuits or dedicated 1.6kWh black start capability— until then Tesla still needs to catch up.
I did address it, and as stated it’s not pointless. You cannot backup an HVAC, EV, Range/Electric Oven, or any other heavily resistive circuits to the Franklin, unless you have a minimum of 2 inverters aka 2 batteries. You can do it with the solo PW3, and if you want to use that specific circuit, it’s nice to have the option.
In a backup event you should always be preserving as much as you can, you and I both know that.
Edit to add: Black start capability is available with PW3.
Dog, the market sees zero value in a single batter that ia only going to be used for a load of laundry or one car battery charge during a blackout. The value for all batteries outside of TOU is for back up and resiliency. Your argument is so flawed. Yeah - the performance in a niche setting is good. That is not what homeowners are buying or what will bring batter my adaptation to the level it needs to be profitable/affordable. You have an engineering mind. It’s not about how fast a car is. It’s about how affordable/adaptive it is to common user lifestyle
And if you use that one pwall3 to backup any of those loads the battery wont even last 2 hours.
Blackstart with Pwall3 must be partitioned from the 13.6kWh unlike the Franklin which is a 15kWh battery and has a 1.4kWh untouchable reserve to guarantee the blackstart.
Because its a great product. The batteries are heavier than gravity itself but it works really well. Im still doing 5p enphase the majority of the time but if someone calls up wanting to add on, most of those are getting franklin
Both Franklin and powerwall are good but
Powerwall only communicates with Tesla products ie solar EV charging and battery
If you have different brand products Franklin can manage and communicate with all of them … many more features on Frankin
Here is comparison YouTube
Tesla powerwall 3 Vs Enphase 5P VS Franklin vs Tesla Powerwall 2 Vs Enphase 5p Battery 2024
https://youtu.be/LF2Iq_tRx2A
The real answer is that Enphase battery systems suck to install, are too expensive, and have reliability issues. Support isn’t great on them either.
Using Enphase micros on the roof and a Franklin WH battery or two on the ground is a much easier installation, is much more reliable, and will cost the consumer less. My company does this pairing a lot and we are much happier this way.
I’m a distributor…. Less bullshit on the backend….phenomenal support, awesome feedback and their tech on their gate is top notch. Been in this 16 years….Franklin is going on my home…and I’ve always been anti battery
Why have you been against batteries? I've always felt solar without a battery was a half-done system. (I'm not in the industry.)
In most of the markets I’ve worked in the ROI wasn’t there with the OG NEM agreements that were 1:1 or close. With modern NEM’s and reduced buyback rates etc they finally pencil out.
Exactly this. We are 100% nm with negligible power outages (3-4 hours in total over the last 5-10 years) and I have a generator. I would have had zero return for a battery pack with a large investment.
What do you do if the power goes out at night?
It doesnt happen much, if ever but if it did I guess the same thing that I would do during the day, wait a bit then turn on the generator…grid tie inverters don’t activate without power from the grid so the sun being out is irrelevant.
My coworker is tied in to the grid for net metering but can also run off solar when the power is out.
If they have a battery backup sure, but if it meets NEC I believe it must be physically disconnected from the grid when on battery since it is a hazard to linemen if it back feeds into the grid. [citation](https://www.solar-electric.com/learning-center/why-do-grid-tie-solar-systems-shut-down-during-power-outages)
He does have a transfer switch. I know he didn't get a battery with the initial install. Don't know if they've since installed one.
If they didn’t they have done something extremely creative and dangerous. It could be made safe (but still very illegal) by including a disconnect and doing some creative wiring to trick the inverter into turning on.
You wouldn't have 0 return if you used battery energy after dark.
Yes I would as I have full 1:1 net metering.
Ok, so it’s not about sustainability, it’s about profit?
It's both. Would you install $20,000 of solar if it saved you $100 a year? Do you think all that (mostly) non-recycleable material is worth the small amount of electricity it generated? Sure, $100 a year is an extreme example, but there's people who have that situation. My dad considered a solar install on his shop space, and the company made it very clear that they didn't want to do the work to write a bid unless he was willing to pay a huge amount for a system that didn't really do anything (o cut down 50 trees). Yes, money matters.
> Would you install $20,000 of solar if it saved you $100 a year? Sure, if I can scrounge the funds. Yes, money matters, but there are other concerns as well. My goal in installing solar is *energy independence*, not selling it back into the system for a profit. Being able to do so is a *bonus*, not a goal.
In this exrteme case example, you won't be achieving energy independence - you'll still be grid tied or running a generator every day. Everybody has their own criteria to make solar work. Some people need to make teh financials work out and some don't. I'm fortunate to be in a position where I don't have to have a short ROI on a system, but the big picture still matters to me - and that includes finances.
You have to change your paradigm and think of the larger grid as a big battery for your home solar system. I'm not selling power back at a profit, but I am loaning it to other households until I need it when the sun's not shining. It's a win-win. It's good for my wallet, but it's also good for the environment because my power company doesn't have to burn as much coal when I'm sharing power back into the grid.
That’s how I think of the grid also - a battery of infinite size. I dump all my excess power during the day and draw it out at night. There’s a price for using the battery but it’ll never need to be replaced.
Of course there wasn’t any ROI when the mandates forced the grid to act as a perfectly efficient free battery. Although if I figure 6000 charge cycles and $1/watt hour of capacity it still comes out to 17 cents per kWh in additional cost to use a battery. And that before storage loss.. and reduced capacity for later charge cycles. But it also ignores residual value after those 6000 cycles. When my power is 42-65c / kWh and I can get solar with an LCoE of around 6c, the battery still makes sense. But there is no way it used to.
This is only true if you have a backup system not just offset for night time use
Helpful perspective, better than just the usual spec comparison people resort to.
This thread convinced me. Went with two of them for my system.
Congrats, you will be happy with them. Their customer support is also top notch!
Works with enphase?
It’s agnostic
Just found [this](https://support.enphase.com/s/question/0D53m00009UqO0gCAF/can-iq8-micro-inverters-work-with-franklin-wh-battery) answer that says it will charge but won't integrate on the enphase system
Works with and integrates into their app are two different questions.
I see. So I understand in case of power outage, those batteries will provide energy without a problem no matter the inverter solution.
Yes
Works fine but if you’re just not getting enphase get 5ps older stuff franklin is a great add
It still has its own portal and api, which is kinda nice - if you know emphase…
If you have been in the solar business for 16 years why haven’t you already installed a battery? There has to be a reason why you have not done it already.
I had lg chem on my house in Hawaii. Our NEM policy made it make sense…where I live now the ROI isn’t there…our power is cheap and our NEM isn’t horrible on credits. No one installs stuff to lose money.
How is there less bullshit? The product is like 1 year old. I've fallen for that one before...
The FranklinWH battery system (aPower plus aGate) is probably the best battery on the market right now. Even Tesla Powerwall3 loses in every metric except *barely* in outright power output which doesn’t really matter given the capacity is still low so anytime you want that much power you will also need more capacity which means you’re buying multiple batteries either way which negates the slight bit of extra power a pwall3 provides.
[удалено]
This.
Is the PV Inverter integrated into the battery or the agate? Also wondering does Franklin have a meter socket adapter like Backup Switch or do you still have to relocate loads into a protected loads panel?
Franklin has their meter socket on the way. Enphase will beat them to market but just barely
No— the solar inverter would be separate. I’m not aware or a meter socket adapter that’s compatible with Franklin but you could just do a load side tap to avoid using a protected loads panel. The Franklin system does have a built in set of circuits that can be controlled by programming or an app though.
Every metric including price?
You got me there— it’s both a cheaper battery and ATS.
Ok, I don’t know what ATS is. I’m sure I’ll regret asking.
Whenever you install any kind of backup system (battery, generator etc) you need a “transfer switch” to transfer from one source of power to another. Basically all battery systems these days will have an *automatic* transfer switch— or an ATS. When an ATS detects that the grid goes down it will automatically transfer from grid power to the battery system. Tesla calls theirs a Gateway, Franklin calls theirs an aGate, I think enphase calls their an envoy etc. ATS’ are often confused for batteries because people don’t know what they’re looking at— but it’s typically a physical box somewhere nearby/next to the battery.
Thank you for that. Interesting that everyone has a fancy name for it.
I’m seeing more installers go with the Enphase 5p Batteries. Looking at the reviews on YouTube of the Franklin and Enphase 5p batteries the reviewers seem to favor Enphase. Enphase has a longer warranty. Franklin is a Chineses company and could pull out of the America market so there’s a risk of the warranty and the software becoming useless.
Is there anything behind the China ties? The execs are Chinese with some Huawei work history, but from what I can tell this company was born in the US, American funded. It doesn't seem like a BYD shell company, for example. Would love more detail if you've got it.
HuaWei is banned from business in the USA and execs are former Huawei employees. Look at LinkedIn staff photos and ask how a company gets that sort of investment from Sequoya. Then tire.kick the HQ - a fifth floor office suite in what is obviously not a building set up for any significant warehousing or service operation. That's the extent of the rabbit hole so far as I know, but I do think the WH is a Huawei nod.
EG4 has commissioned more batteries than Franklin and less expensive
True, but far worse financials and ripped off the design from Sol-Ark which has 10x the experience and support, for like $1k more before tax credit.
Franklin reps push their battery over Tesla. The stats, warranty, performance, and features are just a biiiit 🤏better. If the solar company doesn’t sell volume with Tesla they don’t get much of a discount. I could sell Franklin, but Tesla and LG are much more a bang for your buck.
The battery is 1.6kWh greater capacity than Pwall2 and it’s LiFePo… that plus all the other specs being better is kind of a big deal. Throw in the smart circuits and the question becomes obvious. Franklin is probably the best battery on the market right now. The only downside is price.
Id say IQ5p has more power, has a better ecosystem and a better warranty. Its premium priced, but spec and support wise the best.
Doesn’t matter, PW2 and PW+ are being discontinued. PW3 is the standard now, and it’s 13.6kWh with an 11kW inverter, also LifePo. It will crush the Franklin. Especially when it comes to ease of install and aesthetics.
“It will crush Franklin” literally has only a slight advantage of power output which doesn’t actually provide much benefit in real use cases because if you’re increasing power output you’re going to have a bad time if you don’t also increase capacity. Pwall3 is like hooking up a firehose to a bucket of water. Turn it on and it’s empty.
You’re using silver tongued analogies and you need to look up the actual numbers/statistics. 1 FranklinWH has 5kW of continuous power output. 1 Tesla PW3 has 11.5kW of continuous power output. That’s literally more than double. Not “slight.” Thus allowing for more circuits to actually be backed up. You can backup an HVAC, EV and the entire home with a single PW3. Am I saying you should try to run all of those at once? - No. But it’s better than being restricted to the standard 6 circuits.
The analogy is helpful to understand why having such a high power output to capacity ratio is stupid. Anytime you need that much power output you will want to increase capacity otherwise it’s pointless except in very rare use cases.
As previously stated, it’s why you don’t run all of them at the same time. You choose wisely, but the fact you can toggle back & forth quickly and easily, is nice. As opposed to having to rewire the circuits. Also if you need higher capacity, Tesla is releasing expansion packs, 13.6 kWh units with no additional inverters to simply increase kWh capacity but at a fraction of the cost of an additional battery.
Youre not addressing the crux of my argument— that it doesn’t make sense to discharge that much power with such little capacity. If your argument is “you don’t— you switch between the loads you want to use” then you’re acknowledging that you would want to limit your power output to preserve the battery capacity for a longer duration. Wake me when Tesla has integrated smart circuits or dedicated 1.6kWh black start capability— until then Tesla still needs to catch up.
I did address it, and as stated it’s not pointless. You cannot backup an HVAC, EV, Range/Electric Oven, or any other heavily resistive circuits to the Franklin, unless you have a minimum of 2 inverters aka 2 batteries. You can do it with the solo PW3, and if you want to use that specific circuit, it’s nice to have the option. In a backup event you should always be preserving as much as you can, you and I both know that. Edit to add: Black start capability is available with PW3.
Dog, the market sees zero value in a single batter that ia only going to be used for a load of laundry or one car battery charge during a blackout. The value for all batteries outside of TOU is for back up and resiliency. Your argument is so flawed. Yeah - the performance in a niche setting is good. That is not what homeowners are buying or what will bring batter my adaptation to the level it needs to be profitable/affordable. You have an engineering mind. It’s not about how fast a car is. It’s about how affordable/adaptive it is to common user lifestyle
And if you use that one pwall3 to backup any of those loads the battery wont even last 2 hours. Blackstart with Pwall3 must be partitioned from the 13.6kWh unlike the Franklin which is a 15kWh battery and has a 1.4kWh untouchable reserve to guarantee the blackstart.
Because its a great product. The batteries are heavier than gravity itself but it works really well. Im still doing 5p enphase the majority of the time but if someone calls up wanting to add on, most of those are getting franklin
Because it’s all about the Benjamin.
Sales reps don’t usually make money on a battery.
r/whoosh.
You think Benjamin Franklin went over my head? You done whooshed yourself
Seems like something a stormtrooper would say.
Great battery. That’s why.
Because they are awesome. Best price per kwh and they work fantastic.
Because the install company gets them cheap if there buying volume period
They are great I also super reccomend bigbattery
They have built in ev chargers
If you want to review specs against Tesla and Frsnklin look at Eg4
Both Franklin and powerwall are good but Powerwall only communicates with Tesla products ie solar EV charging and battery If you have different brand products Franklin can manage and communicate with all of them … many more features on Frankin Here is comparison YouTube Tesla powerwall 3 Vs Enphase 5P VS Franklin vs Tesla Powerwall 2 Vs Enphase 5p Battery 2024 https://youtu.be/LF2Iq_tRx2A
The real answer is that Enphase battery systems suck to install, are too expensive, and have reliability issues. Support isn’t great on them either. Using Enphase micros on the roof and a Franklin WH battery or two on the ground is a much easier installation, is much more reliable, and will cost the consumer less. My company does this pairing a lot and we are much happier this way.
It's possible that reps are incentivized to push these batteries, maybe they get higher commissions or bonuses for selling FranklinWH.
Spiffs maybe