Best Solar Battery Comparison 2024. Enphase, Tesla, SolarEdge, SunPower, Franklin, Panasonic 

I wished I had known about SolarEdge inverter unreliability before we purchased back in 2020. We've gone through four units and lost more than a month's worth of usage, so far. Do you have any suggestions, or are we stuck with this kind of unreliability?

Great information! I've got 20 years doing solar in Colorado and we have been a strong believer in the Enphase systems from the beginning. It's always nice to see other companies being honest and laying the options out for people so they can decide, without any hype. Thanks for your honesty.

Honestly, I think this is one of my favorite info videos you have created. Thanks so much

Great video. I live in Canada and our installer recommended Solar Edge inverter. It crapped out after 3 years and that began a 10 month frustration of dealing with my worst customer service experience in the last 5 years. Unprofessional, disrespectful and a waste of rime. It took almost 30 hours of calls to finally get the system back up and running properly. I actually had to go to LinkedIn to be able to get to their North American General Manager. He delegated to the Director of Customer Service was to listen to what happened, but after a month, I received a note telling me is was reviewed and they sent me a gift card that was only valid in the USA. Instead of spending the time fixing what was wrong, they did less than nothing. I am adding about 10kw to my system and rest assured it will be anyone but SolarEdge. Fool me once, “shame on you, Fool me twice, shame on me”. Oh and by the way, no follow-up from the General Manager.

Great info. Thank you so much for the detailed explanation and breakdowns for each battery.

Wow…comprehensive! I love when people know their craft inside and out. It shows in this case. 👍

Just about to get my single IQ5P battery and solar panels to work. Great to hear you like the 5P battery!

Great video with a lot of great info. You are wise beyond your years. Our 31-panel PV system with Ehphase gear was commissioned on Sept 20th, 2023. And for once I'm glad I live in IL since we have a ONE to ONE Net Metering plan that can be transferred to a new owner of your home if you sell it in the future and they have a great SREC program. We had planned on adding the battery back up but given our Net Metering program and the stability of our grid (so far). So we are standing pat for the next year and see what new technology comes to market like the Meter Collar you mentioned.

Nice video - Thank you for making it.

Really good info!!

Thank you so muich, for that excellent overview.

Informative. Good job.

Very helpful. insightful

Rural SDGE customer. Have two solar systems. Small Enphase IQ7 10 panel, and newer 27 panel system with SolarEdge inverter. Been on the battery fence for years. First it was the critical loads panel limitations and now the high costs. Plus the constant "game changing" tech every few months makes one hesitant to jump in. Now there is this meter collar thing to wait for.

Great overview, thank you. I had put an 11kw Solar Edge system on my roof up in northwest Washington several years ago. I knew I would want to install a battery when we could pay cash for it but did not have the money till last year. I was looking primarily at back up power. We are at the end of the power line with a lot of narrow roads and large trees between us and any main power lines. First to loose power and last to get it restored. The house had an emergency sub panel and was wired for a portable generator. It was a little unsettling when the grid would go down, it was sunny out and I had to fire up the generator even with all those panels un the roof just sitting there. When I looked around Franklin seemed like the only unit that would work with the smaller portable generator, the other units if they could be charged with a generator where set up for whole house generators. With a couple of feet of snow on the solar panels and a week of cloudy days I don't mind running the generator but with the small load after we go to bed (propane heat) and small electrical load I did not want the generator running all night. It took some tweaking to set it up and several calls from the installer to a systems engineer but once they got it running it works great. It is set for back up mode. If it sunny and the roof produces more then I use in the house the power goes to the grid and I get paid for it. If the gird goes down and it is sunny the panels take over and the battery fills in as needed. If the battery runs low and the panels can not keep up I can run the generator manually to charge the battery to hold us overnight or for the next day or two. We have had several power failures and the system has worked great. The last time the lines were knocked down I told my wife we had lost power and she asked how I could tell the lights were still on. I told here I could hear the neighbors generator even though our place was quite and warm.

Your comments on SunPower were fantastic!

Would’ve been good to see the Generac batteries on your chart. Thanks for the discussion. Good stuff.

A great informative presentation. I'm sure you did a similar one for panel comparisons. Take care.

Thanks for this; most helpful. As a follow up perhaps include car batteries, as V2G, V2H becomes more relevant.

Wow, you covered pretty much everything home-battery in this one video!!! I think the one thing that I was hoping to see was a comparison on pricing of the hardware and installation (as apples-to-apples as possible). Keep up the great work!!!

Great content, I just wanted to add a small piece of information. The new mini split hvac systems use (hoping I word this right) an inverter compressor that spools up. There is no current spike when the ac pump fires up.

Thank you Julian for this great succinct overview! If you could add a column "utility accepted export limiting" or something like that it would really put the icing on the cake. We are trying to figure out what batteries we can use and still keep our interconnects under 15 kW. Thank you again, Conrad from Cotuit Solar.

My 15KWhr Pylontechs are pretty good (3xUS5000 work superbly at 90% round trip 10kw peak 200a).

Power wall 3 will be a game changer, great solution for TOU markets

Lola made a cameo at the end🤣🤣🤣

Redundant non micro inverters is a good idea for reliability. The micro inverters obviously have a reliability advantage provided they do not have to pass through a central electronic point of combining that could fail.

Appreciate it man, i’m in AZ and I do sales. I’m done with money hungry companies.

great info.. I'm a shareholder / partner at Tampa Bay Solar... we use the SolArk 15 inverter with a lithium ferro-phosphate battery from CALB (for our clients). The new Tesla PW3 looks great, but Tesla is not delivering this (yet) as of February 2024.

Love your content. Went solar in southern AZ in the summer of 2023. I will wait about 10 years before retrofitting batteries (before my RCP rate lock expires). Hopefully the next decade will bring about even more innovation in batteries with new chemistry, higher capacity, greater longevity, and lower prices. But if I had to buy today, the DC-coupled offering from Panasonic Evervolt would be a strong contender.

Hello Julian, My name is Cruz, I have gone through several companies that still don't know anything about solar. The company that I finally had them install the solar array sent over a long crew. They started to install the panels on the side that had a 2 story house right next to my one story house (LOL). I like and have storedge 7600A -USS watch is the high voltage DC inverter setup (350-450 V ). I also, have an LG Chem battery which sucks!!! So far the system has not given me a problem with that, even with them taking a year to finally finish it with the right hardware that the system need to work properly. My next and final step is to Auto transfer switch, 4 motor solar panels (maybe) and a 40KWh high voltage battery system . My 4.85 KWh solar array is keeping up with the normal house functions including my home AC system. When the AC kicks on the battery kicks in for a little boost to start the compressor. Once on it no longer need the battery and the solar until it goes below 3700 watts. My question to you is how would you make the system more robust independent? I know what I need but I have to wait 5 years for them to manufacture time a program it. P.S. Home batteries is the best idea for grid tied system. Especially in a rolling block and unstable line power. thank you for your time,

I'm getting 2 5Ps

Several weeks ago, I changed from a "cell card" to a hard wired ethernet cable running to my router inside the house. Ever since that switch, I've had no communication problems. My cell card consistently showed a signal 10 dB lower than what SolarEdge likes to see, but they say it should still work. 10 dB down is about a factor of 8 lower than desired. If you have communication issues, I strongly recommend hooking it up to your home internet, assuming you have decent internet at home. I had to buy the cable, attach it to the wall, and paint it to match the house. My installer was out to check on an outage issue I had where the power returned to the house but not to my backup circuits. He attached the internet cable to the inverter and set the inverter to "only" use the internet, not "auto connect/auto choose". I didn't want the possibility that it would somehow choose something other than my ethernet cable.

I see a few comments about the EG4 lineup, I think EG4 is more of a DIY focused product, I just did my first off grid install with EG4 products, I'm very impressed overall, it is what it is and for me a good value for what I need.

You should include Blueetti in your analysis. Thks

For me, the overriding and often not talked about feature of the battery is the algorithm of when to charge and discharge. Right now, SolarEdge is quite lame, but they are improving. They do not define the various modes of operation (like what is the difference between maximize self consumption and minimize import???). They have a mode of charging the battery with all of the solar (up to 5 kW) until the battery is full, but then the house has to import if the sun isn't providing 5 kW + house usage. How about charge on excess solar? Then they have a Time of Use profile which is a little smarter, but still buggy. So software is nearly as important as the battery type in my opinion.

I live in Texas and I got the battery to ensure continuity if supply

Good stuff! But I would have included a column for price per KWH... and perhaps factoring in typical cost of installation per KWH, in the case where some are more costly to install than others, for whatever reason.

Tesla power wall 3 has 6 solar inputs so it’s easy to connect small strings that may shade.

I have had the Franklin WH batteries (two of them) plus controller system for about a year now. They seem to work well. The battery specs are somewhat "aspirational," however, in terms of usable kWh and roundtrip cycle efficiency. And that's likely true for all the brands, I suspect. (The actual I got out of a battery was about 83% of the 13.6 kWh nominal, or 11.2 kWh, and the AC-to-AC round trip efficiency was about 74-76% when I tested last year (compared to the 89% spec). Apparently also the internally consumed energy "tax" of a couple hundred watts for running the controller is ignored in the published spec.) The app has a lot of small to medium issues. Sometimes it "lies" (and I'm not talking about the "noise" of a few hundred watts being shown going "the wrong way" sometimes). For example, for Home (energy usage), it often shows about double or triple day totals compared to what the utility meter shows in aggregate. (It contradicts even Franklin's own downloaded data, which agrees with the utility.) Also, what I don't like is not being able to limit the charging power (5 kW per battery), or reducing the max level to something below 100% level (at least when not in emergency "storm hedge" mode), both would be useful to reduce long-term wear of the battery. Furthermore, no easy way to confirm if guaranteed capacity still in spec as the years go by towards the 12y 70% warranty limit (not 10 as you say!). The "battery health" data is visible to Franklin only, a potential conflict of interest IMO. (The lifetime throughput limit of 43 MWh should not trigger in normal cases.) BTW, that "

Just got a new annual electric contract. The good side is that the price of electricity is lower, but the bad is that the solar payback is even lower (a few cents / kWh). Will give it a year to see how the math works out. (have not seen 1 to 1 net metering for a few years)

Had Enphase inverters installed in 2014. Currently running with 5 dead inverters. Even though Enphase will warranty the inverters, the cost of removing my panel array to identify which ones have failed is simply not worth it. I had 3 systems installed at the same time, 28 panel systems, on 3 different houses. All 3 systems have experienced similar issues. I was gun-ho on Enphase in the beginning, not so much now.

Thanks. I am considering building a PV system to charge my Tesla based on a Trace 550048 inverter.

Great info! But believe me no matter where you live Stop paying your electric bill and you will be going off grid!

Getting half retail would be a dream. In Australia we get about 5c per kw fed back into the grid whilst retail pricing is 32c. Fucking BS.

Wow, great info about the meter collar! I didn't know what was going to make blackout power availability more affordable, but I figured something was going to come along. I assume that will also make the iQ8 inverters work in their "sunlight backup" mode, or is that different?

Kw versus KwH ; I'd use the horse and cart parable. KwH is like the distance a horse can pull a heavy cart. Kw is how much weight you put in the cart for the horse has to pull, and there may be too much for the horse to pull at all, or the horse may only be able to pull it for a very short distance.

You cover Georgia now? Cool

Once you have enough battery to avoid importing during high tariff times, a second battery has a hard time earning its keep by offsetting low tariff energy.

Like the video and understand the pro Enphase stance but I think string inverters are gaining ground. EP Cube double stack creates redundancy and allows for 8 strings. Maybe a price per KWh column would be helpful too.

I am a Ham radio operator and solar edge and enphase have caused so much radio interference as to make my radio useless in the neighborhood. I wish they would fix that.

My question of the century.... Sunflower Equinox Solar System, 4.98kW, and some type of EcoFlow Pro Ultra w/smart panel setup or similar modular smart battery/power system. As these modular battery systems start hitting the market, interested in this as solution path vs. high initial barrier to entry cost of the major brands. Also finding batteries compatible with Sun power.

The problem with just slapping more panels on the roof to counter conversion loss, is that some states pay better per kWh sold to the grid if the systems is under 10kW. So we put the 10kW up and try to get as much of it as possible sent to the batteries as DC. EVen DC to DC EV chargers are becoming available for homes so we'd like to send that solar power direct to the EV DC charger instead of AC conversion and then to the EV to be converted again to DC to be stored in the vehicle. Again, going over 10kW solar PV system would mean we got less be kWh sold to the grid. (I know this is the way it is CT and NJ currently at least.)

Excellent information. Thank you. I have an old huge house in RI, perfect for solar. Gambro roof, south facing at highest roof point 45 ft. The only slowdown for me has been chimneys built in the late 1800's which were falling apart and dropping bricks. I have been working on rebuilding all 3 for quite awhile. Attic floor and up! I am an early investor in StorEn Vanadium Flow batteries. I have an opportunity to obtain one as an investor. I can send you a spec sheet if you want. It is a bit expensive but has 30 Kwh, discharge capacity of 100%, Max continuous power of 5Kw, Peak power 7 Kw, round trip 82% and 10 year warranty. Degredation should be minimal given that it is a flow battery and there is no fire risk. Because my roof is easy to access from the attic and not too difficult to navigate, I have even thought of doing a good deal of this myself. I would be interested in your thoughts. Thanks

What about bi-directional charging from EV's???

At 9:24 you say to get solar and batteries installed now, and wait for the meter collar. Since batteries keep dropping in price, shouldn't I wait to install the batteries and meter collar at the same time?

Need to add Sol-ark

Julian, would LOVE to also see a comparison with the new Ecoflow Delta Pro Ultra as well as the Bluetti EP900... and how they "stack up" (see what I did there) against the others in your list (features, pros/cons, etc.), THANK YOU!!

Julian will these metered collar work universal for all systems or will they be system specific?

I appreciate this information. Do you work with many customers that are completely off-grid? I imagine that means more batteries or possibly a generator backup?

Julian, I'm thinking of installing Enphase 5P batteries into an attached garage that is not heated or cooled. Are there operational temperature concerns with the 5P in a room that may range in temp from 30-100 degrees? Thanks for the help in advance.

Wish you include EG4-LL batteries as several are telling me they are the best

Time for a do-over. I suspect you would determine the EG4 PowerPro would come out on top and be the cheapest per KWH.

You don't have suggested retail price per kWh that is more important than any other specs because total pwr and SU pwr can be adjusted by stacking so cost is more important.

BYD HVS/M/L?

Franklin con. power is 5kW as per their datasheet.

10, 15 years from now my IQ8 fails. Is a replacement still made? Is the IQ9, IQ10... backward compatible? Or will all the Enphase micro inverters need to be replaced do to parts out of manufacture?

I'm PA and I didn't think I needed a battery till we started experiencing regular outtages every time the wind blows.

EG4 14.3 wall batteries

Great info video thanks! I do have a question, I want to expand my batteries System, I have 2 Enphase batteries 10T, it is possible to add to my System 2 batteries Enphase 5P or does it have to be only 10T.?

Any thoughts on the newer Duracell batteries on the market? They sound great, but it's hard to really compare.

Where are your BYD batteries on this list?

Thanks for another great video, but how did you manage to leave out the eg4 powerpro wallmount battery which is best bang for buck in 2024 hands down

I'm a DIY Homeowner installer. Just got Certified through Enphase to do the whole job my self. You just Reaffirmed all my research thank you! I'll be doing a 30 panel ground mount with Qcell 410 watt panels with IQ8M micro inverters, the Combiner box 5, the smart switch 3G and 4 IQ5P batteries here in Northern California. With paying 5-600 a month for PGE and rates about to go up we had to do something... Newsom and PGE are a bunch of crooks!

My electric company only pays 6 cents a KwH and then returns it to you at 12.5 cents a KwH. 2 years ago they paid 10 cents a KwH so that wasn't too bad.

Do you cover solar installs in NC?

will the enphase 5P work with my 5 yr old sunpower system? Thanks for the video.

Julian Can you please test and review the EG4-PowerPro battery from Signature Solar, looks like an affordable solution to charge tesla at night. I would need to buy 3 batteries which at $10,000 dls is over my budget, in the other hand 3 EG4s would only cost me 12,000. In california with NEM3 is not really a good deal to sell power during the day and buy it 3 times as much at night when I get back from work. so the logic is to produce power and store during the day. but the batteries are too expensive. Thanks Julian in advance!

How do I remove the Franklin backup battery cover to ensure there aren’t any dust or debris inside of the cover? I’m trying to ensure that no leaves or dust has wedged between the hot components between the cover.

I got 12 Enphase micro-inverters installed on my roof, and 1 went bad after a few months. The thing is that they could remotely reprogram the array to make it appear that the array was still within spec. Thankfully, rather than using accounting tricks, they did the right thing and replaced the inverter (with a little bit of nudging).

I think you undersold the Powerwall 3 a bit. It's a solar inverter with a battery and 6 MPPT's. So it's a combination hybrid inverter with a built in battery. But it also has a separate isolated battery inverter. For the same price as the old PW2 you now have an 11.5KW solar inverter built in - that's over $3K probably closer to $4K right there - especially as it's an all in one unit so you'd save money on installing a typical hybrid. It also comes with a new cheaper meter backup switch that means you won't need the Tesla gateway for blackout protection and should be significantly cheaper to install. Tesla are also planning to make DC expansion units which will just be the battery without the inverters that can be DC coupled and should be quite a bit cheaper. It will also enable V2H from the Cybertruck with just a normal Tesla wall charger. That's a bit more niche and probably not a huge selling point to many buyers but worth a mention. PS I'm also not convinced it's LFP, though I wish it was.

Franklin warranty is 70% at 12 Years... FYI

batterys, with integrated microinverters? how nice, i like this solution, never heard of it Best AC Coupled argument is, that in summer, you have too much power anyway, so, you can afford it easily In winter? ok,... 5% more sunpower is not enough anyway

However, periodically, the SolarEdge battery sometimes tells me it has 0% charge left. I freak out and put it in manual mode and charge the batter to 40% or so. Then the next day, the battery tells me it has 70% charge. I'm going to have to contact solaredge support after the holidays and ask them to tell me what is going on.

Hi Julian, great info and very well explained. Regarding the FranklinWH battery, my understanding is that it has continous power of 5kW (not 7.5kW) and Degregation Warranty of 70% @ year 12 (not 10). Please confirm. Do you have any experience with FranklinWH and what is your recommendation, compared to the Enphase 5P batteries. For example - 3 FranklinWH aPower vs. 8 Enphase 5P batteries?

How far away do you think the meter collar is?

You left out the most important metric: price per kWh

The stat sheet we have for the SolarEdge says it is LFP chem?

So, 5+years ago, the NMC were new tech and the go to for battery systems. I don't remember any hearing any of the downsides. Would it be fair to ask, what are the downsides of the LFP and I should expect to be getting rid of them before their end of life?

Has there been any stats on the % of occurrences that the warranty is actually needed? I mean, trying to send one of these units back for warranty can't be cheap, and it may be naive of me to expect the company to pick up that transport cost. Similarly, I am guessing that there is a documented path to recycle/decommission the units, or do we simply treat it as a used battery for the local recycler?

For a whole home backup, you would really recommend 6 or 8 5P batteries over 3 or 4 10T? You mention a 5% occurrence if communication issue, have they addressed this issue? The cost delta is going to be huge on a whole home backup situation considering you can find pretty good deals on 10T now

Eg4LL has a efficiency of 99% that you failed to list

I wonder what your opinion on Sol-Ark is. I know they are expensive, and they are hybrid inverters, but there is some level of redundancy if you have two or three of them tied in. The Sol-Ark's can handle massive capacities and both AC and DC coupled solar. They do not include the battery... so you would pair the Sol-Ark with a rack or two of (for example ) EG4 LifePower4 batteries (51.2V LFP, 5kWh per rack mount, 6 units per rack for 30 kWh per rack). Everything is basically bussed together (except for the DC coupled solar which goes into dedicated MPPTs), so there is a great deal of redundancy. Though I will note that I'm sure even the enphase battery has just one BMS... and it is the BMS which is the weak link in any lithium battery.

I get a lot of solar salesmen her in San Antonio cuz I just bought a new house and my roof is facing due south. I ask them one question "Do you know who Signature Solar is" If they say no then I send them on their way. Same with you. They sell the EG4 PowerPro WallMount AllWeather Lithium Battery | 48V 280Ah | 14.3kWh LiFePO4 | All-Weather Energy Storage | UL1973, UL9540A $3795. Nothing in this list matches this battery for performance and price.

I like your video. However, in addition to being more expensive and less efficient, microinverters are also not universal. This means that for instance if you are using iq7 , then they must all be the same model. Now, if one of them fails - you will need to find the exact same model, and this can be a problem, especially if the vendor no longer produce it. And the chery on the cake is that many microinverters require battery or grid and cannot directly use the energy of a solar panel (yes, I know there are for example iq8, which only recently could do this but they cost 2 times more than regular iq7) , this means that you will not be able to charge the batteries if the mains is disconnected and the battery charge is too low, even on a sunny day. At the same time, the central inverter can be replaced at any time by any other manufacturer and cost cheaper. And you know that technologies are devloping very fast so if you will need to replace central inverter to something more intersting then old one it will be cheaper, faster and much simpler.

Great video. Only comment is your claim that LFP will not start a fire is inaccurate. LFP has a higher thermal runaway onset temp, but it will go into TR. The trade off is more H2 gas is generated with LFP than NMC, so you trade visible flames for an explosion risk. So install batteries in garages, or better yet outside whenever possible. NMC is not being restricted due to fire, it is being replaced due to cost as well as safety at the mfr's choice.

what should be the maximum charge level be to extend battery life? my samsung cellphone has the option to set the max level to 85% for the longest battery life, would not the same hold true for solar backup batteries?

Great info but absolutley no way would I ever add micro inverters to the roof. That equates to a large jump in connection points, wiring, fusing and parts which substantialy raises the risk of a failure and thus a fire. Simpel string high volts one run to the inverter is the safest route. Saftey above all!

Hello Julian and all, I'm in the market for a solar system and I was just told by a local installer that if I wanted battery-backup with my system I wouldn't be able to use micro-inverters. I know you're an advocate for micro-inverters so figured I would ask here first. Is this true for all cases or might it just be an issue with the inverters they sell? I appreciate your content by the way.

Hoping to use my Ford F-150 Lightning for V2G, my Enphase IQ-80 EV charger only captures my excess solar in 25% segments each 5 minutes, not nearly responsive enough, Do i need Enphase batteries to capture and sell back to grid in between. I am Texas and pay ERCOT the real time rate, but I get penalized about 6.3 cents per kWH when I have to pay the local utility for any grid power in addition to the energy cost when I buy any power at night.

I hate that it's illegal for us to go off-grid. I mean, I understand it, but there should be SOME option, even if paying your way out.