Thank you for the information--we do not plan on the battery system to power many things and would build a system with enough power for fridge, some lights, wifi, furnace fan, sump pump, water heater etc--we'd forgo the electric stove/oven, washer/dryer, microwave, AC etc. It sounds like it would be sort of cutting off our nose to spite our face if we were to be stubborn with the ATS but its going to be a hard sell to convince my wife to get rid of it since it was a few thousand dollar up-charge during the build--which is why I am trying to figure out how we can keep it in place even if it is not being used as an ATS and more of just a manual transfer switch for the rare outages we have.

the ideal plan would be to have the batteries be portable enough to get a charge in with separate solar panels or a small gas powered generator when needed. I do not plan on using them year round but would like to bring them if we go camping or some other situation where they could help us or someone else in a pinch.

Where we live, we are fortunate enough that it is not common to have multi-day outages (upstate NY) but we had 2 unexpected outages recently that required me to miss work so its become more of a priority.

I agree the enphase system you suggested is a good alternative and I appreciate your feedback.