Another excellent summary of these EG4 device's capabilities. My understanding is that as long as I do not send any power back to the grid I will not need an interconnect agreement or any utility "permission" to install this system. I intend to initially set it up as a back up power supply and add solar later.
You're correct about needing permission to sell back to the grid and not needing it if it's not. My biggest concern is that it will not send electric back, but only use it to charge if battery SOC is too low.
Great video and design by EG4. This looks like the way to wire and use solar. My next questions are (1) can I run this app locally without ever connecting to EG4 or ever sharing any system or usage data online and (2) who is EG4 as a company?
Bothe the GridBOS and FlexBoss will be here this week. I am debating installing them myself but wanted to know how does the GridBOSS deal with the GFCI requirements especially double pole CB.
For most people this would seem too complicated and they won’t do it. Like me I have a main panel outside and a sub panel with all my house breakers at the opposite side of the house and it’s indoors. Where do you put the inverter out side then I have to run wires all the way across the house.
The GridBoss is on my shopping list, and Smart Load ports are great. I’m also a big fan of smart panels like the SPAN, but when it comes to load shedding, they’re not perfect. I present to you three such instances, and some proposals to move forward. Example 1: I have a deep water well pump 760ft into the ground that sends water another 100 ft up a hill to a storage tank. The well pump is managed and protected from dry-run by a pump controller, all on a 50A circuit. The system is great at pulling decent current for long durations, but there’s one thing you’re not supposed to do with it… shut off the breaker while it’s running. Doing so can cause damage, and some pump controllers will show an error code and not start again until the error is acknowledged by pressing a button on the controller. It would be safer to stop a running pump by intercepting the tank float sensor circuit with a relay that could then be controlled (maybe wirelessly?) by the load management system. A general-purpose relay that’s configurable like a Smart Load port would be really helpful. Example 2: Smart Wifi-connected water heaters lose their smarts when turned off at the breaker. Rheem has EcoNet, and I’m sure other appliance manufacturers have their own network-connected protocols. Wouldn’t it be great if you could connect your EcoNet account to EG4 so the EG4 load management controller could reach out over the network to turn down the set temperature or even turn it up when there’s too much energy coming in? Example 3: Folks with a Tesla v3 Wall Connector and Tesla Powerwall enjoy the ability to set limits on their vehicle charging when grid power goes down to protect the batteries from being depleted. The Tesla Backup Gateway communicates over a network and stops charging without ripping the power away from the vehicle. Who doesn’t love getting woken up by a “Charging stopped at 2:45am with battery at 65%” message on their phone because the Smart Load port hits a threshold and kills the whole circuit? Tesla has an API that controls charging over the internet, seams like an easy win to include that integration in a future EG4 firmware update. The aforementioned solutions to all three of these problems don’t burn up any Smart Load ports, provide more elegant load shedding, and could add functionality and value to existing EG4 hardware already in service.
@@eekedout this is a test area for me. My home solar system is powering the grid connection into the Gridboss. So my ground/neutral bond is in my main service panel upstream.
My Solar panels run about 50 feet to my inverter on a barn and from there a couple hundred feet to the main breaker at my house on a grid tied system. Would these get me to that hybrid/off grid state without having to redo any line work? Hoping to add batteries and get out from under the power companies blackout thumb.
@@ibenglish by my understanding of how your system is ran it appears you can add the Gridboss and Flexboss21 inverter right next to your main panel. You would remove the wires from your main panel that is coming from your current inverter and put those into one of the smart ports on the gridboss to AC couple it. Then connect the Flexboss21 to it with batteries and you’re now have an offgrid style set up. You would need to do a little re-wiring to get your main power coming from your meter to the gridboss. Check with Signature Solar. They can help you with the design.
Thank you, looking forward to watching your progress going forward. I wish to do something similar incorporating 10k of pv to the Flexboss and tying it together with my existing 12k ac coupled panels. Question, if you use one of the smart ports to tie in my ac microinverters, can you still use the other smart ports in the manner you described? Does attaching AC coupling negate being able to use the smart ports as you described? Much appreciated.
There is still one to one sell back in West Virginia. Maybe I should move there. How do you connect solar panels with micro inverters and 120v to the Gridboss?
I enjoy your videos! 1) Have you tried Wago connectors instead of wire nuts? They have versions for #10 AWG and #12/#14 AWG. I like them much better than wire nuts. 2) I’m thinking the new AbleEdge Smart Panel, MID and smart breakers about to be released by Eaton will obsolete the GridBoss. Have you seen that gear yet? 3) I watched a video on UA-cam (I know, I know) that said the servers EG4 uses to store and process the data for customer setups and ongoing usage is not hosted in the USA. Do you know if this is true? Please keep up the great work!
Well done - I have mine all set up as well however ran into a little snag with the firmware update on the Gridboss I am not sure if it got stuck or something. I did have Signature Solar tech support on the phone and they started and completed the firmware update for me. However the Gridboss is not accepting all the setting changes for some reason and they are looking into it I guess this last firmware from EG4 has some known issues. I did not see your batteries under the solar icon, I have a red exclamation on mine as if it is not seeing the 5 indoor wall mounts that I have. Any thoughts on what i might try doing as well while I wait for Signature Solar and EG4? I am considering the nuclear option and that is powering everything down and bring the system on line as it says in the manual with the Felxboss 21 (no grid power) then the Gridboss waiting for all the lights to come online and then add the Grid power to see if that "refreshes" anything from a "hard rest" kinda thing. I have completed the reset option already with the app and on line, with Signature Solar and that has not worked I think the Firmware just did not fully install properly but looking for all ideas as well. Thanks for your awesome videos nice to see someone with good communication skills explaining slowly how to complete this complex task. Trying to stay warm in south east Idaho.
So can you modify the Grid Boss settings when you have no internet connection or does it require a connection to a hosted site maintained by EG4 electronics?
I thought I had down loaded your wiring diagram, signed up on your site, when I went to download the diagram I got a message stating it was already signed up and I couldn’t download it. Any advice? I have the Flexboss and thinking about purchasing the Gridboss but wasn’t clear on the power wiring from each unit and panel in relation to grid tie and how you wired your entire system.
Shoot me an email and I’ll resend it over to you. Or just use a different email address than you originally used and it will let you download it again.
Can you set the smart port to only turn on when the grid is down? I'm looking to backup another small panel (besides the 200a output) when the grid power goes down.
@@noname12706 yes. You would just toggle the button grid available, always on. When the grid goes down, it would default to whatever settings you set it to come on and go off.
At 4:18 the panel in GridBoss is open and your meter runs into the right 200amp disconnect. Is the empty spot on the left of that connection where an external generator is wired (example of a whole house unit)?
I have purchased the GridBoss and Flexboss21 and one battery. Before my electrician gets here I have been planning where to mount each of these devices relative to my 200 breaker panel. My question concerns the spacing dictated my the electrical code, which I read as saying that there must be 30 inches of open space on both sides of the breaker panel. Your install clearly does not have that spacing. What am I missing? Thanks.
Mine is for testing only. I’m not selling to the grid so I’m not doing any permitting or inspections. But 30” of space on all sides of your electrical panel seems excessive.
I see you changed how you wired your communication cables between Flexboss and gridboss with two cables now. Did you also change the DIP pins on the Flexboss?
Yeah even though the one communication cable works fine, the manual recommends two. So I installed the other one. On my original pdf I took a pic of the dip switches before I had them set properly. I updated those on the pdf over a week ago.
Another excellent summary of these EG4 device's capabilities. My understanding is that as long as I do not send any power back to the grid I will not need an interconnect agreement or any utility "permission" to install this system. I intend to initially set it up as a back up power supply and add solar later.
I want to know this as well!
@@daviddickerson495 I am on a County “grid” and do not sell back. It is not an issue.
You're correct about needing permission to sell back to the grid and not needing it if it's not.
My biggest concern is that it will not send electric back, but only use it to charge if battery SOC is too low.
Great video and design by EG4. This looks like the way to wire and use solar. My next questions are (1) can I run this app locally without ever connecting to EG4 or ever sharing any system or usage data online and (2) who is EG4 as a company?
Bothe the GridBOS and FlexBoss will be here this week. I am debating installing them myself but wanted to know how does the GridBOSS deal with the GFCI requirements especially double pole CB.
For most people this would seem too complicated and they won’t do it. Like me I have a main panel outside and a sub panel with all my house breakers at the opposite side of the house and it’s indoors. Where do you put the inverter out side then I have to run wires all the way across the house.
I have my smart breakers connected to EV chargers and my AC/Heat Pump.
Turning on and off on SOC of the power pro batteries.
Works flawlessly.
@@randya9143 great to hear!
The GridBoss is on my shopping list, and Smart Load ports are great. I’m also a big fan of smart panels like the SPAN, but when it comes to load shedding, they’re not perfect. I present to you three such instances, and some proposals to move forward.
Example 1: I have a deep water well pump 760ft into the ground that sends water another 100 ft up a hill to a storage tank. The well pump is managed and protected from dry-run by a pump controller, all on a 50A circuit. The system is great at pulling decent current for long durations, but there’s one thing you’re not supposed to do with it… shut off the breaker while it’s running. Doing so can cause damage, and some pump controllers will show an error code and not start again until the error is acknowledged by pressing a button on the controller. It would be safer to stop a running pump by intercepting the tank float sensor circuit with a relay that could then be controlled (maybe wirelessly?) by the load management system. A general-purpose relay that’s configurable like a Smart Load port would be really helpful.
Example 2: Smart Wifi-connected water heaters lose their smarts when turned off at the breaker. Rheem has EcoNet, and I’m sure other appliance manufacturers have their own network-connected protocols. Wouldn’t it be great if you could connect your EcoNet account to EG4 so the EG4 load management controller could reach out over the network to turn down the set temperature or even turn it up when there’s too much energy coming in?
Example 3: Folks with a Tesla v3 Wall Connector and Tesla Powerwall enjoy the ability to set limits on their vehicle charging when grid power goes down to protect the batteries from being depleted. The Tesla Backup Gateway communicates over a network and stops charging without ripping the power away from the vehicle. Who doesn’t love getting woken up by a “Charging stopped at 2:45am with battery at 65%” message on their phone because the Smart Load port hits a threshold and kills the whole circuit? Tesla has an API that controls charging over the internet, seams like an easy win to include that integration in a future EG4 firmware update.
The aforementioned solutions to all three of these problems don’t burn up any Smart Load ports, provide more elegant load shedding, and could add functionality and value to existing EG4 hardware already in service.
Why is the ground/neutral bond not at the first disconnect? It needs to be in the grid boss.
@@eekedout this is a test area for me. My home solar system is powering the grid connection into the Gridboss. So my ground/neutral bond is in my main service panel upstream.
Ok thanks.
My Solar panels run about 50 feet to my inverter on a barn and from there a couple hundred feet to the main breaker at my house on a grid tied system. Would these get me to that hybrid/off grid state without having to redo any line work? Hoping to add batteries and get out from under the power companies blackout thumb.
@@ibenglish by my understanding of how your system is ran it appears you can add the Gridboss and Flexboss21 inverter right next to your main panel. You would remove the wires from your main panel that is coming from your current inverter and put those into one of the smart ports on the gridboss to AC couple it. Then connect the Flexboss21 to it with batteries and you’re now have an offgrid style set up. You would need to do a little re-wiring to get your main power coming from your meter to the gridboss. Check with Signature Solar. They can help you with the design.
@ thank you
Thank you, looking forward to watching your progress going forward. I wish to do something similar incorporating 10k of pv to the Flexboss and tying it together with my existing 12k ac coupled panels. Question, if you use one of the smart ports to tie in my ac microinverters, can you still use the other smart ports in the manner you described? Does attaching AC coupling negate being able to use the smart ports as you described? Much appreciated.
@@jeffmathis4514 you will be able to use the other smart ports as I describe. They all work independent of each other.
There is still one to one sell back in West Virginia. Maybe I should move there. How do you connect solar panels with micro inverters and 120v to the Gridboss?
I enjoy your videos!
1) Have you tried Wago connectors instead of wire nuts? They have versions for #10 AWG and #12/#14 AWG. I like them much better than wire nuts.
2) I’m thinking the new AbleEdge Smart Panel, MID and smart breakers about to be released by Eaton will obsolete the GridBoss. Have you seen that gear yet?
3) I watched a video on UA-cam (I know, I know) that said the servers EG4 uses to store and process the data for customer setups and ongoing usage is not hosted in the USA. Do you know if this is true?
Please keep up the great work!
Do I need any panels connected to flexboss21 with battery if ac coupled to gridboss from exisitng system?
@@pan6479 no you will not need panels connected to the Flexboss21.
great review
Well done - I have mine all set up as well however ran into a little snag with the firmware update on the Gridboss I am not sure if it got stuck or something. I did have Signature Solar tech support on the phone and they started and completed the firmware update for me. However the Gridboss is not accepting all the setting changes for some reason and they are looking into it I guess this last firmware from EG4 has some known issues. I did not see your batteries under the solar icon, I have a red exclamation on mine as if it is not seeing the 5 indoor wall mounts that I have. Any thoughts on what i might try doing as well while I wait for Signature Solar and EG4? I am considering the nuclear option and that is powering everything down and bring the system on line as it says in the manual with the Felxboss 21 (no grid power) then the Gridboss waiting for all the lights to come online and then add the Grid power to see if that "refreshes" anything from a "hard rest" kinda thing. I have completed the reset option already with the app and on line, with Signature Solar and that has not worked I think the Firmware just did not fully install properly but looking for all ideas as well. Thanks for your awesome videos nice to see someone with good communication skills explaining slowly how to complete this complex task.
Trying to stay warm in south east Idaho.
So can you modify the Grid Boss settings when you have no internet connection or does it require a connection to a hosted site maintained by EG4 electronics?
You can modify w/o Internet using either local hotspot or Bluetooth.
@@charleshill7184
Please do an episode on whatever app, etc is used to configure offline
I thought I had down loaded your wiring diagram, signed up on your site, when I went to download the diagram I got a message stating it was already signed up and I couldn’t download it. Any advice? I have the Flexboss and thinking about purchasing the Gridboss but wasn’t clear on the power wiring from each unit and panel in relation to grid tie and how you wired your entire system.
Shoot me an email and I’ll resend it over to you. Or just use a different email address than you originally used and it will let you download it again.
Can you set the smart port to only turn on when the grid is down? I'm looking to backup another small panel (besides the 200a output) when the grid power goes down.
@@noname12706 yes. You would just toggle the button grid available, always on. When the grid goes down, it would default to whatever settings you set it to come on and go off.
@@unpluggedtexan Thanks!- Much appreciated. Watching your videos cemented my recent purchase. Can't wait to get everything up and running.
At 4:18 the panel in GridBoss is open and your meter runs into the right 200amp disconnect. Is the empty spot on the left of that connection where an external generator is wired (example of a whole house unit)?
@@MyGuyKirby correct. That’s for a generator.
I have purchased the GridBoss and Flexboss21 and one battery. Before my electrician gets here I have been planning where to mount each of these devices relative to my 200 breaker panel. My question concerns the spacing dictated my the electrical code, which I read as saying that there must be 30 inches of open space on both sides of the breaker panel. Your install clearly does not have that spacing. What am I missing? Thanks.
Mine is for testing only. I’m not selling to the grid so I’m not doing any permitting or inspections. But 30” of space on all sides of your electrical panel seems excessive.
I see you changed how you wired your communication cables between Flexboss and gridboss with two cables now. Did you also change the DIP pins on the Flexboss?
Yeah even though the one communication cable works fine, the manual recommends two. So I installed the other one. On my original pdf I took a pic of the dip switches before I had them set properly. I updated those on the pdf over a week ago.
Thx u
Systems like this you could say screw you utilities, especially when they hate solar!!!
All you guys who show this everything is inside where we live most houses the main panel is outside and your sub panel is indoors.
@@ray1dad you can install the equipment outside. You just don’t want the equipment in the direct sunlight.