What is backup overload protection?
When this feature is enabled, SPAN will automatically monitor your home during an outage to ensure that the total power consumption doesn’t exceed the output capacity of your home backup battery system. During commissioning (usually the day that your SPAN Panel is installed but sometimes shortly following installation day), the installer will define the appropriate power limit based on the battery system’s design and rated output. SPAN may temporarily shed or throttle (reduce) power to appliances to keep consumption below this limit. As soon as it’s safe to do so, power will be restored to the managed load(s).
What is an ‘overload’?
Backup battery systems are designed to perform with a certain maximum operating range. Specifically, the system is rated to continuously output a certain amount of power (kW) to the home. If the home tries to use more power than this rating, the battery will tend to first ‘brownout’ and then shut down altogether unless consumption is reduced. A ‘brownout’ is a drop in voltage that can result in flickering lights or damage to sensitive appliances like computers and audio equipment. Backup overload protection aims to reduce the power consumption before the battery shuts down.
Do I need backup overload protection?
This is an optional feature that is configured at the discretion of the installer based on the backup system design and rules in your local jurisdiction. Core backup functionality like time-remaining estimates and nice-to-have load shedding are always active, even if this feature is not enabled. Your SPAN Authorized Installer™ will determine if backup overload protection is right for your home and battery backup system.
How do I know it’s working properly?
For many customers, backup overload protection will be ‘invisibly’ working behind the scenes and may never activate. Large, multi-battery backup systems have a high output capacity and can power many loads during an outage without risk of overloads. If this feature does activate, Panel owners will see an alert in their SPAN Home® App about a ‘Backup overload protection event’. This means that SPAN is temporarily managing the listed appliances to prevent a battery overload. When power consumption drops, the circuits will become active once more (this may take a few minutes after consumption drops).
Is there any way to turn off the protection?
As the owner of the backup system, you may choose to operate the system ‘manually’ without this automatic overload protection. Backup overload protection can be disabled at any time within the SPAN Home App. Simply go to settings, click on “backup overload protection,” toggle the “overload protection enabled” button off, and click “save changes.”
I’m in an outage and an appliance I want to use isn’t working. How can I power this appliance?
There could be a variety of reasons why circuits shut off or may become paused during an outage. To determine the cause, double check:
- Backup Priorities: Under the Backup section of the app, you can prioritize circuits during an outage and set them as “Must Have,” “Nice to Have,” or “Non-essential.” Depending on the setting, the circuit may automatically turn off during an outage: How to assign your Backup Priorities.
- Oversized Loads: If the backup priority page shows a circuit under “non-essential” and is grayed out, your installer marked it as an oversized load. This means it cannot be backed up during an outage and only an installer can adjust this setting: Why can’t I move a circuit to a different Backup Priority level?
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Backup overload protection / PowerUp Priorities: If your appliance is being turned off due to backup overload protection, it will be listed as a ‘Managed circuit’ in the overload protection event screen. This is because your home’s backup system cannot power this appliance concurrently with the other loads in your home. If you need to use this appliance, try the following steps:
- Use the SPAN Home App to determine what other circuits are consuming power
- Turn off other loads until power is <50% of your backup overload protection setpoint
- Wait up to a few minutes for power to return.
If none of the above explains the issue, please contact SPAN Support to help determine the cause.
Can I control which appliances may be managed during a protection event?
Yes! As a panel owner, you can customize the order in which appliances are managed during a protection event. Backup overload protection is just one function of SPAN and shares a common ordering for appliance management with PowerUp. To customize the appliance management order for this function, navigate to Settings > All settings > PowerUp in the SPAN Home App.
User Tip: SPAN has defined a default appliance ordering based on research into how temporary power disruption will affect panel owners and the appliances themselves. It is recommended to use this default order because it will deliver the least disruptive experience. For example, water heaters with a tank tend to be prioritized because a few minutes of power disruption will not impact access to hot water.