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Backup quality is decided in the DB, not the inverter: what you wire onto the essential panel is what the customer lives with at 9 pm in an outage.
For trained/authorized installers only. Splitting circuits is live DB work — isolate per Isolation & Shutdown.

Essential vs non-essential loads: what belongs on the Backup port — figure KNB-SVG-11

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The sorting rule

On the essential (backup) panel: lights, fans, router/networking, TV, phone/laptop charging, the alarm/CCTV, one refrigerator where the platform’s motor-start capability covers it — on the Kent M1 that means sizing to rated power only. [KNB-VAL-02] Grid-only, always: air conditioners, geysers/water heaters, ovens and induction, washing machines and dryers, large pumps, EV charging, welding-class anything. The arithmetic: the essential panel’s realistic simultaneous draw stays comfortably inside the platform’s backup rating from Backup Can & Can’t — with the evening’s real usage in mind, not the nameplate fantasy.

A cleanly labelled essential sub-panel — photo KNB-PH-06

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Wiring discipline

  • The essential panel feeds from the Backup port’s own protected branch per the platform AC page — grid and backup circuits never share downstream wiring.
  • Label everything: the panel (“BACKUP — ESSENTIAL LOADS”), each way, and the DO/DON’T card on the door. The next electrician must understand it in ten seconds. 📷
  • On Kent G3 three-phase homes, spread the essentials across phases — one loaded phase hits the per-phase ceiling first.

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Prove it, then hand it over

Run the black-start test with the real essential panel: grid breaker open, essentials ride through, heavy grid-only loads stay dead, clean return. Photograph the panel and the test. 📷 Then walk the customer through which switches are backup — it becomes their mental map.

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Common mistakes

  • The whole house on backup “for now” — first outage, first overload trip.
  • Fridge plus AC on essentials because the customer insisted — put it in writing when you refuse, or in the escalation when you can’t.
  • Unlabelled split — the next AC installer taps the backup panel for the new 2-ton unit.
  • Essentials all on one phase of a Kent G3 — per-phase ceiling reached at half the promise.

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When to escalate