Solar with grid connectivity, but no networking?
Spouse and I are trying to get bids from local solar installers and we'd appreciate some crowdsourced knowledge from Tilderinos. Questions first, then some context...
- In the current market, is "no, your equipment can't talk to the Internet" actually an unreasonable demand?
- Is there a term or phrase we should be using to look for, or guide installers towards, solar setups that fully function without Internet access?
- Are there any equipment types -- microinverters, for example -- that definitely will not work due to architecture?
- Are there battery controllers, or central inverters, that are known to play nicely (read: can be expanded later) with batteries from other manufacturers?
For each installer, we start the conversation with "it's essential that the system work entirely offline, without Internet." We're flexible on nearly everything else: system size (probably ~15kW), number of panels, battery, etc. Our first concern is making sure that a 25-year investment is not dependent on some company's cloud servers; secondly, that we're not inverting our dependency graph by making our electric power reliant on the whims of our ISP. There's also the privacy angle. But we're not looking for a totally off-the-grid setup, just trying not to lock ourselves into a bad purchase.
So far, one third of the installers (3/9) have immediately told us we're unreasonable and to just go away. Two others said "sure!" and ghosted us afterwards. One was a little more forthcoming, saying that the equipment requires periodic connections to the manufacturer for monitoring and they couldn't provide a warranty without it. The last two provided bids, but it's difficult to tell if they're telling the truth given the conflicting info we've seen.
Mine works perfectly fine without internet — enphase 14 panel system.
The only need for internet is for monitoring energy production (if you want to). But my internet has been down many many times and my solar still works. AND the monitor they installed has a local web UI.
Have you asked what happens if your internet goes down? Cause worst case if they sell you something with connectivity but it will work without internet, just “misconfigure” the ssid on the solar. Or pihole it.
Warranty might be an issue if regular status reports are expected, definitely check beforehand if internet issues can hamper warranty calls
Thanks! For enphase specifically, I've seen varying reports across the Intarwebz that they may have removed local-only monitoring through firmware updates in ~2024, but trying to track down patch notes has proven difficult. Is your setup recent, with up-to-date firmware?
We have asked the two installers who gave bids what happens in that scenario; both evaded the question as 'too technical' for sales, but also haven't connected us with an expert. We're definitely capable of isolating, selectively blocking, or fully blocking the network traffic, but to Minithra's point, we're concerned about the side effects.
I’ll check my firmware (D8.3.5169). Mine was installed in 2017. 🙃
Maybe ask for customer references? And then check with their customers about outages.
Lemme also try to disconnect from the internet again and see what happens.
Welp. I just checked Enphase's inverter warranty and they're probably disqualified. From the 2026 doc:
Thanks for the input, everyone. In case it helps others, we ended up accepting a bid with:
We confirmed from manufacturer documents that none of these currently require Internet connectivity for either basic functionality, or warranty service. The inverter is a little overkill for a ~15kW system, but we wanted to make sure that it could accommodate higher concurrent amperage from batteries later if/when we expand those.
If I may ask, who is your installer? If you want you can PM me. Looking at doing solar down the line.
Update, four months later. TLDR; working but some issues! First, the bad:
Now the good-ish:
modpoll [options] /dev/ttyUSB0.That repo recommends mbusd to redirect the traffic from USB to TCP output (so that another system can read it). I also did this because I didn't want to run something with frequent data writing directly on my raspberry pi, which is using an SD card. mbusd had a few hiccups for me, so I suggest that folks use
sudo mbusd -p /dev/ttyUSB0 [options] -v9on the original system while testing, andmodpoll [options] <ip address without port>on the client to verify it's working. Beyond needing to write my own config file (as expected), mbusd also did not detect the presence of systemd on my raspberry pi at compile time, so I needed to write my own unit to turn it into a proper daemon.I'm still working through other aspects of local monitoring setup; I don't currently have home assistant (haven't needed it before) but at the same time, running full grafana or similar dashboarding feels like massive overkill.
Thanks for the update! The original post opened my eyes to how farreaching the "SaaSification" of hardware has come , to the point that I was a bit disheartened.
Appreciate you finding a solution that seems to make you happy, and showing that it's possible to avoid the forced networking.
While nothing you are asking for is unreasonable, when I got solar about 6 years ago at my previous home or so it was basically impossible to get solar from a typical reputable installer without internet monitoring. Those that would talk about it said it was a direct stipulation of the panel warranty. So while I did go ahead and get it, here is what I can tell you:
Thank you, this helps a lot. Do you use the provided monitoring information often, or at all?
Between the folks I've asked in person, its usefulness seems equally divided by folks who never monitor the installation ("it just works") and those who check it obsessively to optimize every last appliance. The optimizer camp is mostly fellow nerds at work, but I don't know that I want to develop my inner nerd in that direction.
The information that provided to the owner (us) just wasn't useful enough IMO. They just provided a total amount of power generated in a time period and gave some childish analogies along with it (as much as planting 230 trees!, etc). The actual stats that I was able to see through the tech were really neat and you could see which panels were underperforming. The whole point was that the panels were guaranteed to provide 80% of their original power for 20 years. By withholding that data from me, I could never exactly call them out on it since I had like 40 panels and I'd never be able to prove it was a bad panel.
I use the app to track my usage against higher electrical cost times (particularly when my solar is not producing as much.)
I am not obsessive about it, especially once I grasped the gist, but it helped quite a bit with adjusting when I used appliances and things. The system also prioritizes charging my battery when there is a severe weather warning which has been handy to avoid persistent outages.
I can't speak to your goals, I don't technically "own" my solar so if a panel is underperforming they'd come fix it anyway.
Baffling that you would need internet for stationary panels. I would understand if there was a more complex control scheme, like using GIS data to track the sun, but cramming connectivity into infrastructure that becomes less secure because it has it is insane.
Not really in the current state of affairs.
As seen in other products not enough people push back and required connectivity automatically means new possible revenue sources and data sources.
I am not quite sure why it is normalized in for solar instalations though. Maybe analytics for their own purposes or possibility to deny warranty when the panels are used in a "wrong" way or maybe possibility of adding subscriptions for "advanced" monitoring or functionality?
For clarity: are you looking for a setup that does not in any way access the internet, or just one that will continue to work just fine (minus some convenience extras) if your internet connection dies? If you mean the second but installers are hearing the first, that might explain some of the reactions you're getting if all the gear they sell is network-connected in some way.
In the second case: are there solar/battery products that are known to actually fail to work if they can't call home? I haven't heard of any, but I haven't done any research either.
The latter. We're okay with automatic checks for updates, remote connections for troubleshooting, and extra fancy monitoring while connected. But we're not okay with automatic installation of updates, because that's already caused problems with one major manufacturer.
To your second case, we're not sure either, but if there's no warranty without a connection then we're automatically suspicious. So putting those things together, we've been phrasing it as "must support continuous operation without Internet access" when we contact installers.
Seconding Enphase. Just got a 16 panel with battery backup installed last year. I’m 99% sure basic functionality isn’t dependent on internet connectivity.
The app of course requires connectivity. My installer has also used the connectivity to remotely diagnose an issue on the system.
I have heard of people using HomeAssistsnt automations to pull data for local dashboards, but I am not sure if that data can be sourced offline.
I can say for sure that the panels and battery worked fine whenever my internet has been down.
Smart features can be nice if you want to manage your energy consumption with an Home Energy Management System (HEMS). I work for an organisation trying to get devices to talk more to each other in the home, like you can already do with smart light bulbs and Matter. We're getting there with devices like solar inverters, but it takes time.