Overview of Enphase Energy Systems

Enphase Energy Systems provide flexible, modular solar solutions that allow homeowners to customize their solar power system to suit their solar + backup power needs.

The centerpiece of Enphase systems is their IQ series microinverters. These are small inverter modules which attach to the back of each solar panel, mitigating the impact of shading and enabling more flexible system sizing and layout options. And the latest innovation in the product line, the Enphase IQ8, is the first solution on the market to provide limited backup power, even without a battery bank.

Homeowners can easily mix and match their Enphase system components to gain more resilience against outages and meet their energy storage needs. On this page, we’ll compare the four types of Enphase energy systems and the benefits they offer homeowners.

Enphase Energy Systems: Common Configurations

All Enphase energy systems are built around the Enphase IQ series microinverters, which are paired with solar panels to generate energy for your home.

Out of the box, these systems help homeowners reduce their carbon footprint and save money on their energy bills. These types of systems offer the quickest solar payback period, but they don’t offer any backup power capabilities.

By adding other components, homeowners can add more features to their solar system. Here’s a brief comparison of the 4 types of Enphase energy systems.

Enphase’s “Solar Only” kits are basic grid-tied solar kits that help homeowners reduce their monthly energy bills. These kits come with solar panels, Enphase IQ7 or IQ8 series microinverters, and racking materials to mount your system.

Every Enphase energy system offers system performance monitoring through the Enphase App. For Solar Only systems, the app gives live and historical performance data and charts. It can also monitor the output of each panel separately, alerting you if a panel has failed (and enabling the rest of the system to keep working independently).

The defining feature of the new IQ8 microinverters is that they are “grid-agnostic,” meaning they can provide limited backup power, even without a battery bank. As far as we know, these Sunlight Backup systems are the only solution on the market to offer backup without batteries.

Here’s how it works: your IQ8s create a local microgrid, which manages the energy coming from your panels. When the sun is out, this microgrid can power your appliances directly from solar, so there’s no need to send electricity to the utility grid and back again.

So what happens if there’s an outage? With a Sunlight Backup system, your IQ8 microgrid can continue to use any electricity that is being actively generated by your solar panels! So long as the sun is shining, you’ll still have some amount of backup power.

Sunlight Backup has some clear limitations. It only works when there's sunlight, so you won't have backup power at night, or during overcast weather. And the amount of power it provides scales with solar irradiance, or the strength of sunlight on your panels. At dawn and dusk, less sunlight means less available backup power.

However, none of this takes away from the fact that IQ8s give homeowners the only way to add limited backup power to their home without spending more on a dedicated battery bank.

If you need to add 24-hour backup power with a reliable amount of storage, a Home Essentials Backup system is right for you. This type of system adds a battery bank, which can be composed of Enphase IQ 3 or IQ 10 Batteries in any configuration.

Home Essentials Backup systems are designed for partial home backup to keep “must-have” appliances running during an outage. You can decide which loads are essential, and mix and match Enphase batteries to suit your storage needs.

Choose this type of system if you’d like overnight backup power for common appliances like a fridge, lights, TV, internet, computers, phone chargers, and so on. The larger your battery bank, the more you can power during an outage.

While a Home Essentials Backup system is designed to get you through a night without power, a Full Energy Independence system provides whole home backup power that can get you through an extended outage.

For those who live in harsh climates, these types of systems can help you remain self-sufficient when there are prolonged power outages due to stormy weather.

Enphase energy systems are compatible with up to 40 kWh of storage, which can be achieved with a bank of four Enphase IQ 10 Batteries.

Enphase Energy System Components

Because your entire system is built with native Enphase components, it’s easy to expand your system for more storage and functionality. Here’s a brief overview of each component and the role it plays in the overall system.