I’ve recently been looking at getting solar panels with a battery for my house (I decided not to proceed just yet) and something struck me as particularly odd: Internet connectivity requirements for battery warranties.
As a privacy- and security-conscious person, my preference is to have the various technologies that I own stay offline or, at least, limited in connectivity to what I need from them. That’s why I love my Z-Wave and ZigBee devices, which allow for “smart” operation that’s fully under my control. Whole-home batteries are orders of magnitude more expensive than the typical smart home devices, but they are still “smart” devices and have the potential for privacy violations (by monitoring energy usage) as well as security problems.
Given how sizeable an investment in solar and batteries would be, the warranty period and terms are an important factor to consider. Many solar panels are warranted for 20-30 years, for example. Battery warranties tend to hover around the 10-15 year mark. But digging in a little deeper, I was surprised to find some very specific requirements that would materially affect battery warranties.
Note, I’m only going to be listing batteries that installers have offered to me during my search for solar power. This is by no means exhaustive.
DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer, and my interpretation of warranty terms is just that: my own interpretation. Do not take it as legal advice or anything of the sort. The quotes are imperfect reproductions from the linked documents. I tried to make them look somewhat close to the originals, but that doesn’t always work well with PDF formatting.
Let’s start with Enphase. Their IQ Battery 10C is warranted for 15 years or 6000 cycles, and the warranty terms include the following:
4. Continuous Connectivity. The Covered Products should be continuously connected to the internet during the warranty period, except where interrupted by causes outside of the Covered Owner’s reasonable control. This will help ensure that potential defects in the Product can be diagnosed remotely and that the Product can receive over-the-air firmware updates.
d. This Limited Warranty does not apply to, and Enphase will not be responsible for, any defect in or damage to any Covered Products: [snip] (vii) if the Covered Product is not using the
most up-to-date software or firmware version made available by Enphase and the defect or damage could have been avoided by using such firmware or software version.
I can see how that might make sense. 15 years is a long time and, if some firmware bug is discovered during that time, which might cause undue degradation, they want to make sure the bug is addressed as early as possible and avoid battery damage.
Next, we’ve got FranklinWH. The aPower S is warranted for 15 years or 60 MWh throughput, and the warranty terms include:
This Limited Warranty does not cover, and FranklinWH will not be liable for, any defects, damage, or performance issues caused by, arising from, or related to any of the following circumstances:
[snip]
Remote Updates and Internet Connectivity
To maintain the full warranty coverage (12-year or 15-year), your FranklinWH System must maintain consistent internet connectivity allowing FranklinWH to remotely update system software.
By installing the FranklinWH System and connecting it to the internet, you agree to allow FranklinWH to perform these remote software updates without prior notice, which may temporarily interrupt system operation.
If the FranklinWH System remains disconnected from the internet for more than 90 consecutive days, FranklinWH will issue a notification requesting reconnection. If internet connectivity is not restored, the warranty period will automatically be reduced to a four-year limited warranty from the initial installation date.
This one is a bit more strict in its requirements, and I’m really not a fan of the reduction of the warranty period. At least they notify you before that happens.
Renon’s warranty is 10 years or a “minimum throughput energy” calculation that confused me a bit. Their terms include the following:
2.9 Products need to be connected to the Renon cloud platform in use, if the proportion of online time in any quarter is less than 80% after the Warranty Commencement Date, the warranty period and guaranteed minimum throughput energy are halved, that is, the warranty period is reduced to five (5) years and the guaranteed minimum throughput energy is reduced to one point five (1.5) MWh per kWh. The proportion of online time is based on Renon Cloud
Platform statistics.
I really dislike this one. Not only do they require a very specific minimum amount of time for connectivity, but that information is decided solely by their internal statistics, rather than what the battery itself might record, so we now have to trust their cloud software to track everything accurately.
The last one I had been offered is Discover Energy’s Helios battery, which is warranted for 10 years or 93MWh. The warranty terms for that battery include:
For further clarity, this warranty is void if the Battery:
[snip]
21. firmware is NOT updated to the specified version when requested and in support of a warranty claim.
These terms appear to be the most lenient of the bunch. No hard requirements for connectivity, but they can request that battery firmware is updated for warranty claims (unless I’m misreading that).
To summarize, battery manufacturers have terms in their warranties that may impact your ability to keep expensive infrastructure securely offline and disconnected. They have arguably valid reasons for doing so. I just wish that they wrote better firmware in the first place, so that this wouldn’t be required.