FranklinWH aPower Combo: Meeting Growing Home Energy Needs

Today’s homes are using more energy than ever, driven by larger appliances, EV charging, home offices, and higher expectations for whole-home backup. For many advanced energy needs, sampled data shows that at least 20 kW of continuous power is required to keep multiple major loads running simultaneously. 

A home energy management system with undersized battery storage can leave homeowners heavily reliant on the grid at night, reducing potential energy savings. During prolonged outages, insufficient capacity and output can also interrupt the home energy experience.

This article explains how the FranklinWH System’s aPower combo helps address these challenges with greater power and expanded storage.

Dual Boost: Ramping up Both Power and Capacity

The aPower combo is a FranklinWH System configuration that combines multiple aPower batteries to deliver higher energy performance. It can include various combinations of aPower 2 and aPower S batteries, depending on the homeowner’s energy needs and home setup.

The key value of the combo is its dual advantage: it increases both continuous power and energy storage capacity in a single system. For homeowners with demanding energy needs, this means a more capable whole-home energy experience. The system can power more household loads at the same time, including energy-intensive appliances, and keep them running for longer periods while reducing the single point of failure compared to other popular DC-coupled systems. 

aPower Combinations at a Glance:

Fits All Home Scenarios

The FranklinWH System is designed to match different home setups, whether homeowners are adding storage to an existing solar system or building a new solar-plus-storage solution.

aPower 2 + aPower 2: For Homes with Existing Solar

• Ideal for existing solar systems: Adds powerful battery storage without overhauling the original solar setup.
• Solar-inverter agnostic: Works with different solar inverter brands, making it suitable for retrofit projects.
• Highly flexible: The external inverter helps homeowners preserve the battery investment while allowing easy future updates to the inverter hardware.

aPower 2+ aPower S: For Expanded Solar Systems

• Ideal for homes intending to expand solar systems: Homeowners can preserve their current solar and storage setup while easily adding new solar panels and battery capacity.
• Integrated energy management: The new solar and extended battery storage can be integrated with the existing FranklinWH System, creating a single, coherent home energy management system. 

aPower S + aPower 2: For New Solar Installations

• Ideal for new solar projects (≤ 20 kW): Direct solar-to-battery connection with expanded storage, helping capture and store solar energy more effectively.
• Plug-and-play simplicity: Enables a cleaner, more streamlined  installation, reducing time and minimizing components on the  home.

aPower S + aPower S: For Heavy Solar Generation and Complex Setups

• Designed for high solar generation: Each aPower S allows up to 20 kW DC of solar input, making it suitable for majority of new solar installations  (> 20 kW).
• Ideal for super-large homes, agricultural ground mounts, or light commercial use: With high solar input, increased continuous power, and expanded storage, the system can support the highest energy demands coming from larger homes, small businesses, farms, or other advanced energy scenarios.
• Suited to complex solar layouts: The aPower S features multiple solar input channels and can connect arrays across various roof planes or separate buildings, helping homeowners capture more solar energy from complex sites.
• Increased financial benefits: Facilitates more solar self-consumption, lower grid reliance, and potentially higher long-term savings.

Flexible and Easy Multi-aPower Expansion

FranklinWH aPower combinations makesystem expansion flexible and straightforward. For each type of combination, the system allows up to 225 kWh (15 units) of stacked storage capacity per aGate to handle even the most complex energy needs. Whether it is larger PV system sizes or larger power and capacity needs, an aPower combo will work. 

For homeowners who have already installed an earlier-generation aPower (i.e, aPower X), aPower 2 and aPower X* offers backward compatibility. This means they can still increase system power and storage capacity by adding aPower 2 or aPower S units.

*Note: aGate version 1.3 (SKU: AGT-R1V2-US) or later (e.g., version 1.3.1, SKU: AGT-R1V3-US) is required to integrate an aPower S.

Ultimate Reliability

The FranklinWH System is designed to deliver a more reliable whole-home energy experience through parallel battery architecture and redundant system design.

• 99.999%* reliability: A multi-aPower architecture is built for high system availability, helping homeowners maintain a smoother and more dependable energy experience. 
• Redundant reliable design: Multiple aPower units work together in parallel, so the system is not dependent on only one battery unit.
• Eliminating a single point of failure: If one unit is temporarily unavailable, the remaining units can continue supporting your home through the system, improving reliability for both everyday energy self-consumption and backup needs during outages.

* The FranklinWH System is certified to the TIA-942 Rated 1-4 data-center reliability standard, meeting the highest grade with up to 99.999% system availability.

Enhanced Energy Optimization and Backup Experience

FranklinWH aPower combinations help homeowners get more out of their FranklinWH System. 

• Handle a diverse range of loads: Higher continuous power enables the system to support a larger number of household appliances, from essential circuits to high-demand loads such as  AC units and pool pumps.
• Shift more stored energy to peak hours: Larger storage capacity along with intelligent Time-of-Use (TOU) algorithms allows homeowners to use more battery power during peak electricity periods, minimizing grid reliance and generating greater potential savings.
• Longer-lasting whole-home backup: Expanded capacity helps keep your entire home powered for longer during outages, even with energy-hungry appliances such as HVAC systems, EV chargers, pumps, or electric water heaters.

Conclusion

FranklinWH aPower combinations give homeowners a flexible and scalable energy solution that can grow with their changing needs. Whether for existing solar homes, new solar installations, expanded solar systems, large homes, or small commercial use, it can be configured to fit different scenarios while increasing both power and capacity.

No matter how home energy demand evolves, FranklinWH helps homeowners build a home energy system that can continue to live up to higher expectations for their daily energy optimization, backup needs, and long-term energy freedom.