FranklinWH whole-home energy management system overview | The Pitch – Solar Builder Magazine

FranklinWH is one of the newest entrants in the whole home energy storage market (and gaining a lot of traction). Its Franklin Home Power system consists of the aPower battery and the aGate energy management system.

Is it the most robust system available to truly backup and manage power for a whole home? Here to make The Pitch is co-founder, CEO and U.S. GM Gary Lam and sales director Justin Hopkins.

In this 12-min chat we discuss:

1:19 – Specs of the aGate | “One of the unique options we have is our smart circuits. Those are three circuits that can be controlled by the smartphone app and then the homeowner actually can turn them on and off. So these are used for things like an EV charger, air conditioning, pool pump, things that might not be vital in an outage when the customer is trying to preserve power.”

1:49 – How the smart circuits function (and what they can manage) | “The aGate can switch to battery power in 15 milliseconds. So, that’s essentially data grade speed. This is going to help protect home devices, it’s going to keep the home powered. … And again our battery is really designed for whole home use.”

2:05 – Examples of how it manages power and saves money (charging with solar, load shifting, backup switching, etc.)

3:34 – Does this replace the subpanel installation? And why that matters. | “One of the advantages with our battery, especially in older homes is the aGate can eliminate the need for the main panel upgrade. Our aGate actually has a 280 amp busbar on a 200 amp main connection. So that’s going to support folks that are maybe sitting on 125 or 100 amp panel right now and are looking to add more solar, expand their energy usage and electrify their home a little bit more.”

“The amount of revenue that gets held up in the two to three month wait times, where we really rely on limited inspectors when there’s just such a lack of labor. So the expectation now is that installs are going to take with storage five, six, seven months even, and it’s kind of become acceptable, which really hurts revenue.”

5:18 – aPower specs. “The aPower integrates the battery inverter with the battery, so that provides kind of four key benefits. The system is designed for retrofits. So, homes that already have solar can easily put our battery on without the extra cost of the hybrid inverter. It’s designed and built in-house, so the inverter in our battery is actually assembled into the aPower.”

“Most grid tied inverters are going to have very limited power output, so the aPower design works with the grid and the solar to provide continuous discharge power. Our surge power is what’s going to allow us to start whole home appliances. So you stop worrying about is my AC going to come on.”

7:02 – How does it work with PV inverters? | “Our technology doesn’t rely on any frequency shift of things that based on inverter technology … so we do not depend on the PV inverter’s performance for off-grid connections.”

7:49 – What happens when the battery is drained?

8:41 – Explanation of the internet connection.

9:18 – What stands out about installation process?

10:42 – Supply chain issues?