Huawei’s ‘FusionHome’ solar inverter really wants your house to come alive

Huawei’s first residential energy management system, the “FusionHome Smart Energy Solution”, is being launched in Australia, with availability this quarter.

Originally announced last year in June for Europe and shown off at Solar Power International in Las Vegas this fall, the new system is aiming for a ‘1-size-fits-all solution’ for residential energy management purposes.

Huawei is really trying to wake up your house.

On the Australian residential page for Huawei Solar, about halfway down, is their brochure (PDF) for the FusionHome.

The FusionHome is built around the inverter, the Sun2000L (PDF brochure – image below, on left), that comes in kW sizes of 2.0, 3.0, 4.0, 4.6 and 5.0. The unit has an integrated energy storage interface, however, the inverter isn’t required to have those batteries connected to run. This really is a killer feature for those who want solar now and would like to upgrade later as the home energy storage market wakes up.

The only other inverter sold that offers this, I think, is the SolarEdge StorEdge 7600 or, if you’re patient, Enphase – in 2019. The SolarEdge solution does cost more money – additional hardware – at time of initial install, not sure if the Huawei requires additional hardware. SolarEdge’s product is available worldwide, right now.

This inverter integrates solar panel level optimizer management (PDF brochure – image on the right above). Panel level optimizers give you significant flexibility in laying out panels – no longer will one panel in a shadow lower the whole system’s production. That means it’s an intelligent financial decision to fill your roof with panels, even if a couple of panels run at less than optimal levels, because you’re already spending money on a lot of highly productive panels.

Back in October at Solar Power International, it looked like the inverter included a connection for the emergency backup electrical panel. See the image below. I’ve not seen evidence of this connection in the current documentation on the Australian page (or the European residential page).

In the Featured Image at the top of the article, in the lower left portion of the image, you see a piece of hardware called the ‘Smart Home Hub.’ The hardware must be purchased through a third-party, although no third-parties were specified.

The purpose of that hardware is to connect with strategic home appliances. These appliances will be managed ‘intelligently’ in concert with your solar production and battery capacity. Intelligent management will combine variables such as the changing prices of electricity across the day, how much solar is being used, and how full your batteries are to help you decide what hardware to run in the house.

These Huawei units have a budding intelligence, much like what is necessary to run the Sonnen Community in Arizona or the 650MW Tesla distributed battery being built-in Australia.

The “Residential” subsection is not listed on the North America Huawei solar page.

Twitter Launch:

We are proud to announce that our FusionHome Smart Energy Solution is now available in Australia with LG’Chem’s ES batteries! @LG Chem https://t.co/UmP6I0iQFk pic.twitter.com/cOmDJic069

— Huawei FusionSolar (@HuaweiSolar) January 31, 2018

Electrek’s Take

We’ve all wanted a smart home since we saw the Jetsons. A home that has the ability to do things like cooking, cleaning and scheduling a great social life. Today – we do have a Roomba, and now our cars are getting smart – but most of our houses just kinda sit there.

A little over a year ago, I wrote an article that suggested it was energy storage/solar inverters that were going to be the path toward smartening up houses. Remember those Swiss students who built a smart house? Many are thinking about it.

It seems like energy (money) savings and environmental concerns are motivating an early phase of this smartening. It will be in regions whose power grids have variables that can be countered by a smart house – which lead to saving money – who invest first. These people will connect their washer, their TV, hot water, car charger, etc. directly to their FusionHome.

That’ll be a big step.

Considering residential solar? Understand Solar will connect you with local contractors, Tweet Me an I’ll give you some feedback or allow me to give you a professional residential consultation that will save you money.

For more electric vehicle, autonomous transport and clean technology news, make sure to follow us on Twitter, Newsletter, RSS or Facebook to get our latest articles.