David and Sarah Chen reserved their Kora Founders Edition system in January. When installation day arrived in late March, David kept a detailed log. We spoke with him afterward about what the day actually looked like — the preparation, the process, and the moment everything came online. Here’s his account.
The Week Before: Site Assessment
"We had a site assessment about two weeks before installation," David explains. "The Kora technician came out for about an hour — walked through the electrical panel, the garage where the Powerblocks would be mounted, and assessed the wiring. He told us our 200-amp service was fine and that we wouldn’t need any panel upgrades, which I was relieved about. He marked exactly where the Powerblocks would go and gave us a two-page checklist of what we needed to have ready on installation day."
The checklist was minimal: clear a 6-foot wall space in the garage, ensure the area was accessible, have a licensed electrician on site or confirm the Kora team would bring one (they did), and make sure someone 18+ would be home all day.
8:00 AM: The Team Arrives
"Two trucks showed up right at 8. Four people total — two electrical technicians and two who handled the Powerblock mounting. They were polite, efficient, and clearly had done this dozens of times. The lead tech walked me through the whole plan for the day before they started. I appreciated that — I knew what to expect."
The first order of business was a 20-minute power interruption to replace the existing panel with the Kora Smart Panel. David and Sarah had been warned about this and had coffee ready.
8:20 AM: Smart Panel Installation
"The power went off at 8:20 and came back on at 8:47. I was honestly surprised — I expected it to take at least an hour. The old panel came out, the Kora Smart Panel went in, and the team started labeling every circuit. They used both the standard labeling on the panel itself and created a detailed map in the Power App so we could see exactly which circuits were which."
The circuit labeling process took about 40 minutes and involved one technician walking through each room confirming circuit assignments while the other worked at the panel. David notes: "This was actually useful beyond just the energy system. We’d been in the house four years and still had four mystery circuits. Now we know exactly what every breaker does."
9:30 AM: Powerblocks Mounting
"They brought in the first Powerblock — it’s about the size of a large refrigerator but much slimmer, more like a tall cabinet — and mounted it to the garage wall. We went with 32 kWh, so two units. The mounting took about 45 minutes for both. They’re bolted directly to the wall studs and look really clean. Not an eyesore at all."
Kora’s Powerblocks are designed for indoor garage or utility room installation. They are IP55-rated for dust and water resistance and operate in temperatures from -4°F to 122°F, covering virtually all residential environments in the continental United States.
10:15 AM: Wiring and Integration
"This was the part that looked the most complicated from the outside. They ran conduit from the panel to the Powerblocks and made all the electrical connections. One of the techs told me this is where most of the install time goes — not the hardware itself, but the clean, safe wiring work."
The integration wiring connects the Powerblocks to the Smart Panel’s built-in inverter and communication bus. Kora uses a proprietary high-speed communication protocol between panel and storage that enables the sub-20ms transfer time — significantly faster than systems using separate inverters connected via standard protocols.
11:45 AM: App Setup and Commissioning
"This was the part I was most curious about. One of the techs sat with me for about 30 minutes and walked through the app setup completely. We set up the Wi-Fi connection for the panel, walked through every screen, set up my TOU rate schedule from Eversource, and configured the backup reserve settings. He answered every question I had."
The Power App setup includes: connecting to the home Wi-Fi network, importing your utility rate schedule (Kora maintains a database of TOU schedules for 300+ utilities), setting backup reserve preferences, configuring automation rules, and running an initial system test that simulates a grid outage to verify the backup switching works.
12:30 PM: First Kilowatt-Hour Stored
"They completed the system test at 12:30. Everything went green. The app was already showing our circuit-level consumption data, and the Powerblocks started charging immediately from the grid. The team did a full walkthrough — showed us the breaker locations for the Powerblocks, gave us the service contact number, and left us with a laminated quick-reference guide."
"Total door-to-door time: 4.5 hours. No damage anywhere. The garage looks cleaner than before, if anything. My wife asked why I was surprised — I told her I’d expected it to be more like having a furnace replaced, but it was more like having new appliances delivered."
The First Week
David shared his first week of data with us. The system automatically optimized for Eversource’s TOU rate schedule — charging primarily during the off-peak window (11pm–7am) at 14.8 cents per kWh and discharging during the peak window (4pm–9pm) when the rate is 32.4 cents.
"In the first week, the app says we saved $34.20 on our electricity bill compared to what we would have paid on the standard rate. Extrapolated out, that’s about $1,780 per year in TOU savings alone — before adding any VPP enrollment or solar (we’re getting quotes for that next)."
The system also performed its first real backup event on day four when a brief outage hit their neighborhood for 23 minutes. "We didn’t even know it happened until I checked the app. All our circuits stayed on. My son was gaming and didn’t notice. That was the moment I understood what zero-gap power actually means."