Elderly Couple Disgruntled with Sunrun's "Whole Home Backup" Home Integration System

[Jim Lewis]

All's well that ends well: https://www.f150lightningforum.com/...backup-power-without-sunrun.12564/post-353016

I'm very happy with the work that ETW Energy did in San Antonio, TX as a subcontractor for Sunrun (many ETW Energy folks are ex-Sunrun employees). I paid $11,650, but I got a new main panel, a new subpanel, and some serious wiring problems corrected. Sunrun let me use my entire original subpanel setup as the backup loads panel (all the lightning and electrical outlets in my house) on the proviso that I manage loads manually. The installation caused some sheetrock damage, but all that was impeccably repaired and colored matched to the existing garage wall color.

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[JackieDemarais]

I've gotten a bid from Sunrun to install the Ford Charge Station Pro and the Home Integration System and have signed the contract with the option to cancel up to the installation day. Yet nowhere in the contract do they state exactly what they're going to back up. I've told them if they don't give me a suitable answer, I will cancel. I thought other forum members might find the specifics amusing and also be able to offer me some good advice.

To provide context and back up a bit, my wife and I are an elderly couple in our 70s. We have a ~3400 sq ft house. Our kids are middle-aged adults and long gone. They live far away, and we visit them. They don't visit us. We live frugally, don't throw large parties, have many house guests, etc. We live as if we owned a 1,000 sq ft house. All the heavy-duty electrical stuff, the oven, and stovetop, and the two AC compressors are on the main panel. Everything else, except for the electric dryer, on the sub-panel, are electrical outlets and lights. The blowers on the two gas furnaces are powered on the subpanel as well as the refrigerator/freezer, and from time to time in the winter, usually one, sometimes two 1.5 kW space heaters.

Our sub-panel has twenty-six 20-amp 120-volt breakers and a combined 30-amp 240-volt breaker for the dryer for a theoretical max consumption of 69.6 kW, whereas the main panel is only breakered for 30 kW for the sub-panel.

Perhaps here's where electrical ignorance and foolishness on my part kick in. In fall, winter, and spring months, when AC use is not a factor, our average daily electrical use is always less than 15 kWh PER DAY. And that includes the use of the electric stove top, oven, and dryer. I figured with that low consumption of power, the truck could literally back up the whole sub-panel with the dryer removed without much risk of trying to draw too much power from the extended-range battery that will come with the truck.

However, Sunrun has told me that their SOP is to break out just the circuits my wife and I deem as critical to a sub-sub-panel that is referred to in their documentation as the "backup panel" (BUP). When you look at their website setup literature, the requisite checklist sheet for backup loads testing allows for a panel that holds at most 12 household circuits:

https://sites.google.com/sunrun.com/sop/work-instructions/backup-loads-testing?authuser=0 (sign in with a Google account, see slide 12 by clicking on the slide number at the lower left)

Also, the required photo checklist for installation commissioning shows a panel with at most 12 breaker slots: https://sites.google.com/sunrun.com/sop/photo-checklists/ev-charger-system-checklists?authuser=0 (sign in with a Google account; see slide 20 in 2nd set of slides for EV Charger and HIS by clicking on slide number in the lower left of 1st slide)

I suggested to Sunrun that the truck with 9.2 to 9.6 kW output could easily back up our very low electrical usage if the dryer circuit were just removed from the sub-panel. If Sunrun were concerned about the ill-considered use of electricity drawing too much power from the truck, why not just put a 40-amp breaker in the HIS circuitry to the sub-panel? No response whatsoever from Sunrun so far on this suggestion.

I decided the ultimate bottom line would be the City of San Antonio electrical code inspectors. So, I spoke to a very helpful inspector on the phone today.

He suggested that putting load-dumping circuitry between the HIS and the sub-panel would be one way to have a "whole house backup" while protecting the truck from drawing too much current. He agreed that putting a 40-amp breaker in any acceptable place between the truck charger and the sub-panel would also do. But he said one of the most important elements of code inspection in San Antonio is whether or not the wiring scheme used meets the recommended wiring diagram of an OEM. He did suggest that if Sunrun wasn't willing to customize my installation, I should find another installer, but it seems that meeting the wiring setup recommended by the OEM is going to be a tough nut to crack. The inspector did say that all the Sunrun installations that he's inspected (presumably mostly solar panels) were well done.

I've forwarded the electrical inspector's comments to Sunrun, but they haven't responded yet. It does seem like with Sunrun that you're paying a lot but getting a little, at least in customizing an installation to fit a customer's electrical usage. Another complication that I didn't discuss with the inspector and perhaps the reason Sunrun doesn't employ the two overprotection ideas I'm considering is that both load dumping circuitry and big breakers can generate large transient voltage spikes, according to Internet articles. There might be a need to provide downstream surge suppression that might wear out eventually. So, if anyone has any good advice on any of the above for an electrical ignoramus, I'd much appreciate it.

Sun Run is utterly incompetent.