01/19/2025
Let me tell you guys about one of my most recent service calls. HO had a DnR performed sometime in May last year. The DnR contractor found that nearly all of this guys IQ7s were not working at all and hadn't been for some time. HO had no way of knowing because the original installer never installed a gateway. Luckily the DnR folks did install one. To add to this the original installer sold him an Outback Radian with 6 outback AGM batteries that was supposed to offer him partial home backup.
I got called out because the batteries were not accepting charge and after "repair" 6 micros are still not working. At this point the HO has had none of this working for months, has 18 mods he can't use just sitting on the side of his house, and is now finding out that he has many miles to go before a fully functional system.
DnR contractor had removed original Sunpower 360s and replaced with Q-cell 405s saying that "the 360s had too high a voltage to work with the micros". Then DnR contractor filed a warranty claim on 12 of the 18 micros and was able to replace. During this process the DnR contractor has someone go and "turn off" the battery inverter. Really, all they did was turn off the inverters ability to pull power from the grid to charge the batteries. The result was 6 AGM batteries with a critically low state of charge.
Once I start digging in to the system, I first find the setting issue and correct. Luckily the batteries are able to accept charge. As I look through the wiring of this beast I find that the Outback inverter, that is only there to charge/discharge the batteries is tapped to the service wires. Follow that downstream to the usual disconnect, then inverter. From there it starts to get super weird. His inverter then feeds a protected load panel where the interconnection breaker for the enphase is located. From what I am seeing his Outback inverter is feeding the whole service as well as drawing from it at the supply side tap, then also feeding the PLP. While the Outback does have the Mate3 controller, I am finding no ATS. There is a MTS that would allow him to switch to a backup generator. Inside this protected load panel you will find 3 wires capped off that lead to a breaker in the homes main service panel.
This s**t is a mess. In a power outage situation his whole house is backed up, without adequate infrastructure to handle it. I am assuming the Outback puts out a square wave that will cause the micros to shut off during an outage. So in an outage he is completely reliant on those batteries and Outback to handle the whole load of the home. Then once they are drained, he's is screwed until the power comes back on. To add to that I am concerned that if there is a power outage then the Outback will be feeding onto the grid which is dangerous on many fronts.
On my visit to his site I was able to get the battery inverter to charge the batteries and am hopeful that my 3 hour call with Enphase will result in him getting new micros. That is just the start of fixing this. With all of this I have questions for you guys,
1. For anyone more experienced with the Outback Radian than I, is it possible that thing is feeding onto the grid during an outage?
2. How can I really tell if these AGMs are safe to continue to use?
3. The Sunpower 360s mentioned earlier are fully functional and up for sale. Does anyone have wants or needs for them?
