Anker’s flagship power station, the Solix F3800, is now shipping after raising nearly $6 million on Kickstarter. It can be used standalone for weekend away power or expanded for whole-home backup. Prices start at $3,999 and general sales are scheduled to begin on January 9.
The 3.84 kWh Solix F3800 power station can be expanded to 26.9 kWh of power capacity after adding six 3.84 kWh Anker BP3800 LFP expansion batteries. It’s capable of producing up to 6,000 watts of dual-voltage AC output (120V/240V) across a large number of plugs – enough to easily power any household appliance, including an air conditioner and water pump. You can also connect two F3800s together to get 12,000 watts of total AC output and up to 53.8 kWh of capacity, but now you’re talking about a system that costs tens of thousands of dollars.
According to the US Energy Information Administration, the average American home will consume 889 kilowatt-hours per month in 2022, or about 29.2 kilowatt-hours per day. So, Anker’s maxed-out system (53.8 kWh) has enough stored energy to power an entire house for about two days, or much longer if you’re only running important appliances like the refrigerator, freezer, sump pump, and some lights.
The F3800 is designed to be portable with a telescoping handle and wheels. You can connect up to 2,400 watts of foldable solar panels to the F3800 to create a 132.3 lb (60 kg) semi-mobile solar generator to power your RV, boat, work shed, or tiny house NEMA 14-50 built-in module and L14 outlets -30. You can also charge your electric vehicle with 6000W/240V for a range of twelve miles or more in emergency situations.
Anker offers a few kits built around the F3800 power station to keep a home running when the grid goes down, which it frequently does due to the rise in severe weather. Each kit varies in cost, complexity, and the control it can provide over home circuits.
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At the upper end is the Solix F3800 Home Power Kit, which is only available in the US. It combines the Solix F3800 with a number of additional electrical boxes and cables, including an Anker Home Power Board (professional installation required) to provide battery backup and automatic switching for up to 12 circuits in your home. It also allows your F3800 batteries to store energy collected from rooftop solar panels after installing an inverter. The Anker system can then be optimized in the Anker app (connects via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth) to charge batteries using excess solar energy when the sun is strong and electricity rates are cheap and to power the home at night from your own energy stores when grid rates increase – which could save you money by the time. The F3800 Home Power System cannot return excess electricity to the grid.
A less powerful and cheaper home backup kit includes a 10-circuit 120V/240V transfer switch, allowing the Solix F3800 and any expansion batteries to plug directly into your home during an emergency, just like noisy and smelly gas generators. However, liquid gold-powered generators still have the advantage of powering your circuits 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 your Solix F3800 battery pack.
Back in June, Anker announced a more powerful Solix home backup solution that’s expected to ship sometime in 2024. But that Solix solution is wall-mounted like the Tesla Powerwall, while the Solix F3800 kits offer more flexibility due to their portable design And the normative. . For example, you can unplug the F3800 unit and some expansion batteries from home and use them to help power your next summer trip or weekend getaway.
Anker, like EcoFlow and other new Tesla Powerwall competitors, is positioning its Solix F3800 home backup kits that can be “easily installed within a few hours” (by a professional electrician) while doing so “at a significantly reduced cost compared to traditional systems.” Home energy storage options. But it’s a calculation that every homeowner should check to take into account their unique needs, tax incentives, other local variables, and the inevitable installation weirdness that usually accompanies any quest for energy independence.