EcoFlow SHP2: Which 12 Circuits to Back Up First

Installing an EcoFlow Smart Home Panel 2 with the DELTA Pro Ultra gives you whole-home battery backup with app-controlled circuit management. The SHP2 manages up to 12 circuits, which means the most consequential decision in the entire system is not which battery to buy or how many panels to add — it is which 12 circuits earn a slot. Get this wrong and you are backing up your patio lights while your medical equipment runs out of power. This guide gives you a practical framework for selecting and prioritising your 12 backed-up circuits, based on load types, daily watt-hours, and backup duration targets.

A real-world build documented on DIY Solar Power Forum — a full-house DELTA Pro Ultra with SHP2 and 8kW of solar — found that the trickiest part was not the wiring or the inverter spec; it was the circuit selection. Most residential panels have 20–30+ circuits for a typical home, and choosing the right 12 requires knowing not just which appliances you care about but also how much power each draws and how that interacts with the DELTA Pro Ultra's 7,200W output limit.

What the Smart Home Panel 2 actually does

The SHP2 is a 12-circuit intelligent sub-panel. Your electrician wires the selected circuits from your home's main panel into the SHP2, and the SHP2 sits between those circuits and the DELTA Pro Ultra's inverter output. During normal operation with grid power, the SHP2 passes grid power through to those circuits transparently — you notice nothing different. When the grid goes down, the SHP2 switches to the DELTA Pro Ultra in under 30 milliseconds (EcoFlow specifies sub-30ms transfer time), and the inverter takes over powering those 12 circuits from battery. Circuits not wired into the SHP2 lose power as normal — they see the outage as usual.

The SHP2 also provides real-time monitoring of each circuit's draw, visible in the EcoFlow app. This is useful not just during outages but all the time: seeing which circuits draw the most power on a daily basis helps you calibrate backup time estimates and identify energy waste. The circuit monitoring is one of the underappreciated benefits of the SHP2 for existing owners — it is essentially a permanent energy monitoring sub-panel on your most important circuits. For context on the full system architecture, our guide to the DELTA Pro Ultra X at full scale covers how multiple DELTA Pro Ultra units and battery banks scale together.

The 12-circuit constraint: more limiting than it sounds

A typical 2,000–3,000 sq ft US home has between 24 and 40 circuits in its main panel. Picking 12 means leaving more than half of your home's circuits unprotected. This feels tight until you inventory which circuits actually matter during an outage. Many residential circuits power things that either draw too much to back up (central air conditioning compressor, electric water heater, electric range) or are genuinely non-essential during an outage (outdoor lighting, decorative circuits, guest room outlets). The 12-circuit limit forces a useful prioritisation exercise that most homeowners benefit from even if they do not end up needing backup power.

The DELTA Pro Ultra's 7,200W continuous output is the other constraint. Even if you had 20 backed-up circuits, you could not run them all simultaneously if their combined draw exceeded 7,200W. With 12 circuits, it is possible — though unlikely with typical residential loads — to trip the output limit if you run high-draw appliances simultaneously. Mapping out the peak wattage of your 12 selected circuits before installation lets you confirm the combination is within the DELTA Pro Ultra's output limit and plan the circuit priorities for load shedding if needed. The guide to whole-home modular storage and smart panel setup covers capacity planning for the full system.

Tier 1: circuits that must be on the SHP2

Medical equipment is the highest priority for any home that uses it. CPAP machines, home oxygen concentrators, infusion pumps, and motorised hospital beds all qualify. A CPAP with humidifier draws 30–100W; an oxygen concentrator typically draws 300–600W. These are modest loads but non-negotiable in terms of priority. If anyone in your home uses medical equipment that requires electricity, that circuit goes on the SHP2 first without question. Our guide to running CPAP and medical equipment from backup power covers the UPS passthrough requirements some medical devices have.

Refrigeration is the second must-have tier. A standard refrigerator draws 100–200W while running (compressor on-cycle) and consumes 1–2 kWh per day. A full freezer draws similarly. During an extended outage, food safety becomes a concern around 4 hours without power — the SHP2's sub-30ms transfer means the fridge never even notices the grid went down. A refrigerator circuit is typically a dedicated 20A circuit in the kitchen and should be one of the first slots claimed. If you have a second refrigerator or chest freezer (especially if fully stocked), add that circuit too.

Communications infrastructure — the router, any network switches, a home phone line, and your mobile phone charging point — should be on the SHP2. A home router and modem draw under 30W combined, making them one of the cheapest loads in terms of battery drain. But losing internet during an outage eliminates your ability to monitor the EcoFlow app remotely, check outage maps, and communicate. A single circuit covering the router area protects all of this.

Tier 2: loads worth protecting

Lighting — specifically, the circuits covering your main living spaces — matters for safety, comfort, and productivity during a multi-day outage. Most homes have multiple lighting circuits; cover the kitchen, living area, and primary bedroom circuits. LED lighting is extremely efficient — a fully-lit room may draw 50–150W total — so lighting circuits consume very little of the DELTA Pro Ultra's capacity. The cost of backing up good lighting is low; the benefit during a 12-hour or multi-day outage is high.

A well-pump circuit is essential for any home on a private well. Without power to the well pump, you have no running water — no flushing toilets, no cooking water, no hand washing. A typical jet pump draws 750–1,500W when running (duty cycle is intermittent), and a submersible pump draws 500–2,000W depending on depth and flow rate. This is a higher-draw circuit than lighting or communications, but the water access it provides makes it a near-mandatory inclusion for well-dependent homes. Confirm your pump's wattage and startup surge (pumps can draw 2–3× running wattage on startup) before assigning it a circuit slot, since the surge current affects which other circuits can run simultaneously.

A ceiling fan or room fan circuit serves double duty during summer outages: it makes indoor temperatures tolerable in the absence of air conditioning (which is typically too high-draw to back up), and it runs on minimal power — 20–60W per fan. In climates where summer heat is the primary outage risk, backing up one or two fan circuits significantly improves livability during a multi-day outage. Similarly, a small window AC unit (5,000–8,000 BTU) drawing 500–800W may fit within your budget if the climate demands it, and with the DELTA Pro Ultra's 7,200W output you have headroom for it alongside other tier-1 and tier-2 loads.

What to leave off the SHP2

Central air conditioning compressors typically draw 3,000–5,000W and add startup surges of 4,000–7,500W. Even the DELTA Pro Ultra's 7,200W continuous output makes this marginal, and it would dominate the battery's capacity — a 3 kW AC compressor running 50% duty cycle consumes roughly 36 kWh per day, more than the base DELTA Pro Ultra's 6.1 kWh battery can supply. Unless you have a full array of expansion batteries, central AC is not a practical SHP2 candidate. Leave the main AC circuit on the unprotected side of the panel and use fans (which you have backed up) to manage heat during outages.

Electric ranges and electric water heaters similarly draw too much for battery backup to be practical. An electric water heater draws 4,000–5,500W while heating — it would consume the entire DELTA Pro Ultra battery in under two hours on its own. A gas water heater with an electric igniter is more suitable; the igniter draws under 100W and can be backed up on a general outlet circuit. Electric ranges draw 3,500–7,200W; gas ranges with electric ignition draw under 50W. If your home runs on gas for cooking and water heating, these are not concerns. If fully electric, plan your circuit selections around avoiding the highest-draw appliances and ensure the SHP2's circuit slots go to loads with tolerable battery footprints.

Configuring priority levels in the EcoFlow app

After the SHP2 is wired and commissioned, open the EcoFlow app and configure each circuit with a name and a priority level: High, Medium, or Low. The app uses these priorities for automatic load-shedding when the DELTA Pro Ultra's battery falls below your configured threshold. Assign High priority to medical equipment, refrigeration, well pump, and communications. Assign Medium priority to lighting and fans. Assign Low priority to anything that can tolerate being shed — guest room outlets, miscellaneous appliances, secondary lighting.

The load-shedding sequence runs from Low to Medium: when battery reaches your Low-priority cutoff (typically 30%), the app automatically disconnects all Low-priority circuits. When battery reaches your Medium-priority cutoff (typically 20%), Medium circuits are shed. High-priority circuits remain on until the DELTA Pro Ultra's minimum reserve is reached. Testing this sequence before a real outage is straightforward: in the app, you can manually trigger load-shedding on individual circuits to verify the sequence works as intended. Do this within the first few days after installation. The EcoFlow app settings guide covers all the charging and management controls available in the app.

Adding capacity with expansion batteries

If your 12 selected circuits consume more watt-hours per day than the DELTA Pro Ultra's base 6.1 kWh battery can support through a full outage, expansion batteries are the solution. The DELTA Pro Ultra accepts up to two additional DELTA Pro batteries, each adding 3.6 kWh, for a total of 13.3 kWh. Two DELTA Pro Ultra systems can be paralleled for 14.4 kWh plus expansion. The key calculation for expansion planning: sum the daily watt-hours of your 12 backed-up circuits (referencing the per-circuit monitoring in the EcoFlow app), then divide by the number of days of autonomy you want. If your 12 circuits consume 12 kWh/day and you want two days of autonomy, you need 24 kWh of battery — which requires a paralleled dual DELTA Pro Ultra system with expansion batteries.

For most homeowners with the SHP2 and 12 well-chosen circuits, the base DELTA Pro Ultra with even a single expansion battery covers a 24-hour outage comfortably — typical essential loads (fridge, lights, router, fan, CPAP, well pump) usually total 5–8 kWh per day after accounting for duty cycles. The circuit monitoring data from the SHP2 gives you precise figures rather than estimates after a week of monitoring. See the expansion battery compatibility guide for which batteries pair with the DELTA Pro Ultra and how to connect them through the EcoFlow app.