Anker’s flagship power station charges electric vehicles and makes homes energy independent

Anker’s flagship power plant, the Solix F3800, is now shipping after raising nearly $6 million on Kickstarter. It can be used stand-alone to power weekends or expanded to provide backup for your entire home. Pricing starts at $3,999, with general sales starting on January 9th.

The 3.84kWh Solix F3800 power station itself can be expanded to 26.9kWh energy capacity by adding six Anker’s 3.84kWh BP3800 LFP expansion batteries. It’s capable of producing up to 6,000W of dual-voltage (120V / 240V) AC output through a large number of sockets, enough to easily power nearly any household device, including air conditioners and water pumps. You can even connect two F3800s together for a total AC output of 12,000W and a capacity of up to 53.8kWh, but now you’re talking about a system worth tens of thousands of dollars.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the average U.S. household consumed 889 kilowatt hours per month in 2022, or about 29.2 kilowatt hours per day. So a fully loaded Anker system (53.8kWh) has enough stored energy to power an entire home for about two days, or longer if you’re only powering key appliances like refrigerators, freezers, sump pumps and some lights. time.

The F3800 is designed to be portable, with a telescoping handle and wheels. You can connect up to 2400W of foldable solar panels to the F3800, creating a 132.3 lb (60 kg) semi-mobile solar generator that is built-in NEMA 14-50 and power your RV, boat, work shed or small house powered. L14-30 port. You can even charge your electric vehicle at 6,000W/240V in an emergency to add a dozen miles of driving range.

Anker offers a number of kits built around the F3800 power station to keep homes running when the grid fails, which is happening more frequently due to an increase in extreme weather. Each kit varies in cost, complexity and the control it can provide through the home’s electrical circuits.

The highest level is the Solix F3800 home power kit, which is only available in the United States. It combines the Solix F3800 with a host of additional electrical boxes and wiring, including Anker’s Home Power Panel (requires professional installation), which provides battery backup and automatic switching for up to 12 home circuits. It also allows your F3800 battery to store energy collected from existing rooftop solar panels when a current transformer is installed. The Anker system can then be optimized in the Anker app (connected via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth) to use remaining solar energy to charge the battery when the sun is bright and electricity is cheap, and at night via energy storage. The house has electricity. Grid price increases—potentially saving you money over time. The F3800 home energy system cannot send excess power back to the grid.

Less powerful and less expensive home backup kits include a 10-circuit 120V/240V transfer switch, allowing the Solix F3800 and any extended batteries to be plugged directly into your home in the event of an emergency, like a noisy and smelly gas generator. However, a generator running on liquid gold still has the advantage of powering your circuit as long as you keep filling the tank. Unlike the Home Power Kit, the Home Backup Kit requires manual intervention to switch up to 10 home circuits to the Solix F3800 battery array.

Back in June, Anker announced the launch of a more powerful Solix home backup solution, which is expected to ship sometime in 2024. But where that Solix solution attaches to the wall like a Tesla Powerwall, these Solix F3800 kits offer more flexibility due to their portable and modular design. For example, you could disconnect the F3800 unit and some extended batteries from your home and use them to power your next summer road trip or weekend trip.

Like EcoFlow and other recent Tesla Powerwall competitors, Anker is positioning its Solix F3800 kit as a home backup that can be “easily installed in a matter of hours” (by a professional electrician) while costing “significantly more than more traditional ones.” Lower” home energy storage options. ” But it’s a calculation every homeowner must verify to take into account their unique needs, tax incentives, other local differences, and the inevitable installation quirks that often accompany any pursuit of energy independence.