[Gibbon1]

I have a AO Smith hybrid water heater for the last year and half. Seems to work. Made sense in my case because I wanted to move water heater from the house to the garage. Using a hybrid unit meant I didn't need to plumb gas and figure out how to install a vent.

My suggestion is when you get your solar system installed have the electricians run a 30 amp circuit and disconnect to the water heater location. That way you'll be ready to go. Otherwise you can get stuck if you current water heater dies. You'll be basically forced to replace it with a new gas heater.

Also I saw a youtube video by a off grid nut talking about installing a heat pump water heater. It worked, the only problem it had was the AO Smith unit he was using would test it's heating elements on startup. Which would overload his inverter. I think he fixed that by getting higher resistance heating elements. Otherwise the current draw in heat pump only mode was 300 Watts.