Best Home Solar Generator for 2023 (The Ultimate Guide)

in this video we're going to take a look at whole home generators that can provide automatic power to your home if the grid were to go down now most associate generators with traditional Gas Propane or diesel generators but in this video we're going to cover options that require no fuel or maintenance are surprisingly capable and can provide an unlimited amount of power as long as the sun is shining they're sometimes referred to as solar generators you may have heard of Tesla powerwalls which homeowners are getting to power their homes and electrical vehicles but units like those require Professional installation permits and other requirements which can get expensive very quickly now these devices on the other hand that we're going to cover in this video are very similar in concept but at a reduced price and are often a bit more for the DIY audience I set up one of these devices last summer with solar panels and have powered my office including my air conditioner in the summer in a heater in the winter with plenty of power to spare for about a year now in this video I'm going to do a quick run through on five of the most popular our options on the market that could power select lines in your home through something like a transfer switch detailing the specs and unique features so you get a solid overview of its capabilities I'll then do a breakdown comparison of how these stack up against each other based on important criteria if you're considering purchasing one of these and at the end of the video I'm going to give you my thoughts on which I'd recommend based on criterias that may be important to you I've also included a spreadsheet with all the information I'm going to run through if you want to reference it as well to help you in your buying decision if you're in the market so let's go ahead and jump in blue Eddie ac500 so let's start out by running through the numbers the blue Eddy is definitely the most powerful that we're going to take a look at the AC output capability on one of the units is 5000 Watts with a surge of up to 10 000 Watts but if you tie two of them together with a hub that they sell shown here you can output a whopping continuous 10 000 Watts Now using their Hub you can also output 240 volts as well as 120 volts at 30 amps regarding solar charging capabilities you can accept 3 000 watts per hedge unit and a total of 6000 Watts with two head units and as shown here I have 3820 watts of solar panels powering my office this is only about 64 percent of what these two units can handle so there's still a lot of room to grow if I wanted to expand the system out now if you want to charge it from the grid it can handle 5000 watts per unit and 10 000 Watts with tooth units now each of the batteries that you can add on can handle 3072 Watt hours and you're able to expand it up to a total of 18.3 kilowatt hours per head unit and up to a total of 36.8 kilowatt hours between the two head units so what are the unique features for this model now for starters it's got a 50 amp connector option on the front these units can serve as a UPS and let me explain really quickly what a UPS is at this point in the video as all of these that we're going to cover have this feature if this device is connected to the grid and it Powers specific lines that are connected to it to the actual head unit should the external power sending power from the grid to the blue Eddy go down the devices being connected to this device in this case it's a UPS it would actually continue to operate without shutting off the devices that you have plugged into the blue Eddie would continue to be powered even though the grid feeding the blue Eddy was turned off now it would detect a power outage and continue operating seamlessly from the battery now this is a common setup for people with medical devices they rely upon as well as those that run sensitive electrical devices such as computers that cannot afford to have them go offline now one of the common questions I get asked all the time is what happens if the battery goes bad or needs to be replaced now due to the fact that most of these systems have the battery integrated internally there's not really much you can do but since this head unit is connected to a battery you have that separation between the inverter and charge controller and you can replace the battery independently now speaking of batteries they are self-heating which is useful if you live in a cold environment and one of the tests I run on these devices is a test that AC and DC efficiency using some simple testing procedures for AC I get 82 percent and for DC I get 77 efficiency now additionally if the battery drains all the way down let's say you use the batteries overnight and it's plugged into solar it will automatically start charging in the morning when the sun comes up without having to turn on this device now regarding brand recognition blue Eddie is a commonly known and reputable company in the space and the price is definitely on the high end starting at four thousand eight hundred dollars for One battery in a head unit out of all the units we tested it definitely has a higher starting price point but the add-on batteries are comparable to the others in price on the market it's just that the head units are very expensive those are very capable now additionally they do provide a four year warranty and I'll post a link to a dedicated video I've done in the past on this device in the description comment section if you want to dive in more on this particular product ecoflow Delta Pro so the ecoflow Delta Pro is definitely the OG of the group it came out nearly two years ago and in this industry that's kind of getting long in the tooth but it still holds up extremely well even though it's a little older now the AC output capability on one of the units is 3600 Watts with a surge of up to 7 200 Watts but if you tie these two together with a hub they sell shown here you can output a whopping continuous 7 200 Watts Now using their Hub to connect these two together you can output 240 volts as well as 120 volts at 30 amps it also has a 30 amp plug-in on the front regarding solar charging capabilities it can accept 1 600 watts per unit and a total of 3200 Watts with two units if you want to charge up in the grid it can handle 1800 watts at 15 amps and 3 000 Watts at 240 volts per unit and 3600 Watts at 15 amp and 6000 Watts at 240 volts with the two units each of these batteries that you can add on can handle 3.6 kilowatt hours and you're able to expand it up to a total of 10.8 kilowatt hours per unit and up to a total of 21.6 kilowatt hours between the two units so what are the unique features on these models the first point I would make about this device is that it's a tank I've moved it around I've dragged it over stuff I've beaten it up a bit and it just keeps going I like to handle the wheels and honestly it's just one of my favorite units as it's easy to move around for whatever I need to power additionally ecoflow products are just I guess the word I'm looking for is mature of all the companies that are rolling out products in the market they're the ones that are constantly innovating and upgrading and as such when it comes to their apps they're definitely hands down my favorite on these units you can also adjust the charging speed remotely over Wi-Fi via their app which is a pretty unique feature they also sell a dual fuel generator that you can connect up to this unit that detects when the batteries are low and it will automatically fire it off to charge up the batteries it too can be controlled remotely via Wi-Fi also you can tie these into their smart home panel I did a whole breakout video on this and essentially it's an intelligent panel that you can install into your home that takes over if the power goes down when tied into these units for the efficiency tests for AC I get 74 and for DC I get 82 percent efficiency and if it drains overnight it will automatically reboot without having to physically turn it on once the Sun hits the solar panels now regarding brand recognition it's definitely highly recognize in this market the the price for the unit itself is three thousand two hundred ninety nine dollars and each add-on battery is two thousand three hundred ninety nine dollars at 3.6 kilowatt hours mango power e next up is a Mingo power e it resembles the ecoflow Delta Pro in a few ways the handle the wheels and their specs the AC output capability on one of these units is 3 000 Watts with a surge of up to six thousand Watts but if you tie two of these together with a hub they sell shown here you can output 6000 Watts continuously and using their Hub you can output 240 volts as well as 120 volts at 30 amps it also has a 30 amp plug-in on the front now regarding solar charging capabilities it can accept 2000 watts per unit in a total of 4 000 Watts with two units and if you want to charge it from the grid each unit can handle 3000 Watts or 6000 Watts with two units in each of these batteries that you can add on can handle another 3.5 kilowatt hours and you're able to expand it up to a total of seven kilowatt hours per unit and up to a total of 14 kilowatt between the two units so what are the unique features the one unique feature is a battery manufacturer that they use catl I think it's pronounced cattle now cattle batteries are the most popular EV battery manufacturer in the world and they are actually used by Tesla so if you want to ensure you're getting a reputable battery manufacturer they've got you covered but of all the units we tested it's probably the most basic the app is very basic and there's not much that you can do to make changes on the settings even on the device itself also if it drains all the way to zero even while being plugged into solar it's not going to automatically start charging unless you physically push the button on the front to turn it back on now this is going to be a problem if let's say you are powering devices overnight and it runs out of power but was still plugged into your solar panels it wouldn't start recharging on its own if you're not there to physically turn it back on then it's not going to charge now for the efficiency test the AC it came in at 81 and for DC I get 82 percent efficiency regarding brand recognition of all the units we tested it's definitely the newcomer and admittedly I had never heard of them prior to them reaching out to me the price for the unit itself is 399 each but they did offer coupon which I'll paste below now each add-on battery is another two thousand eight hundred ninety nine dollars at 3.5 kilowatt hours each and again add coupons for those they also have a five year warranty renergie like in 5000. I've had this unit set up for nearly a year now powering my office computer my internet portable air conditioner in summer and here in the winter and of all the products I've reviewed over the years on this channel this is easily my most practically used product I picked up 12 of renergie's 320 watt panels and put them over my office plus I added on three more of their batteries in the storage container now of all the units I've tested this one is the only one that does not have 240 volt capability but for my needs that hasn't been an issue the AC capability of this unit is 3500 Watts with a surge of up to 7000 Watts it has 120 amp and 130 amp plug-in on the side I typically tie the 30 amp connection and run this to my office now regarding solar charging capabilities it can accept a total of four thousand four hundred watts and if you want to charge it from the grid the unit can handle an input of 2400 Watts so far I've almost exclusively powered it from solar and I've only had to charge it a handful of times when performing high power usage tasks in the evening now each of the add-on batteries you can install can handle 2.5 kilowatt hours each and you're able to expand it up to a total of 19.2 kilowatt hours so what are the unique features well it looks like an oven and it weighs like one as well it's designed to operate outdoors with an ip55 rain rating and that's exactly what I've used it for the downside of that is of course the weight but it has wheels which you can easily use it to move around but I have no plans on moving it it's engineered with parts that renergy already has in their inventory so the upside compared to all the other units I tested is the fact that you can open it up and work on it and the parts are easily obtained through the renergie website now the other units I've tested are Compact and simply not designed to be worked on it also can serve as a UPS now we're going regarding connecting to it it does have a Bluetooth module which will allow you to connect via their app but if you want a Wi-Fi connection to this they have an additional item that you can purchase called the renergy one and one that connects to it and then connects via Wi-Fi so you can monitor it anywhere now with the app you can only monitor the device and you cannot make any changes regarding efficiency test results the AC results came back with a whopping 96.3 efficiency also there's no DC output so I didn't test for that their brand is also very recognized within the DIY solar Market the price for the unit which includes two 2.4 kilowatt hour batteries is four thousand two hundred dollars and if you want to expand the batteries as shown here they cost one thousand four hundred forty four dollars each and they have a capacity of 2.4 kilowatt hours each their products have a three year warranty and if you want to learn more I'll provide you with a link to a dedicated video I did on this product last year zendor Super Bass v6400 this unit is fascinating it's very ambitious it has some features that are unique in this market let's start with the AC output capability if you look at the front you'll see it has a standard 15 amp plug-ins which can output 1 800 watts each then you have the 30 amp 120 Volt Plug-In here which is another 3600 watts of output capability then there's the most unique feature that none of the other units possess which is a 240 volt output at 16 amps now I have not seen a 240 volt on a model like this before so it's definitely a first now typically you have to tie two units together to get the 240 volts and on their website they state that each of these units can output 3 800 watts of power and combined you can output 7600 Watts now regarding connecting two of these units together to Output 240 volts this unit doesn't require an additional Hub to accomplish this instead you connect these two together with this connector that plugs into the two 30 amp plug-ins on the front now regarding solar charging capabilities it can accept 3000 watts per unit and a total of 6000 Watts with two units and if you want to charge it from the grid it can handle 1 800 watts at 15 amps and 3600 Watts at 240 volts per unit and 3600 Watts at 15 amps and 7200 Watts at 240 volts with two units now regarding charging it with 240 volts this unit also has another first there's a plug-in in the back where it can accept an EV level 2 charger again the first amongst these models in each of the batteries that you can add on can handle 6.4 kilowatt hours and you're able to expand it up to a total of 32 kilowatt hours per unit and up to a total of 64 kilowatt hours between the two units now the Battery Technology they use is also a first it's a semi-solid state battery all these units that we've tested so far use lithium iron phosphate Battery Technology which is very common so what's the advantage of semi-solid State batteries mostly weight this Battery Technology can hold 42 percent more energy per pound compared to lithium iron phosphate for example if you compare this unit to the ecoflow Delta Pro they're similar in size in the zendor weighs 30 pounds more but the Eco flow at 100 pounds can hold 3.5 kilowatt hours whereas a zendor at 130 pounds can hold 6.5 kilowatt hours now the downside with this battery chemistry is that it has roughly half the charge cycles of lithium iron phosphate batteries so if size and weight is important to you the zendor definitely excels other unique features on this model is the UPS switch over time which according to the manufacturer zero milliseconds this is the fastest of the units that we've reviewed one other feature that's kind of hilarious is that you can actually drive the device through their app it's just one of those funny features I guess I also drained the battery down to zero percent then I plugged it into solar panels and the unit began to automatically start charging I didn't have to turn it on now regarding the efficiency test results it comes in at 85 on AC which is strong and 81 on DC which is pretty normal about brand recognition Mission admittedly like the mango unit I tested I've never heard of this prior to their new product launch last year so it definitely is on the low end of brand recognition and finally when it comes to pricing they're definitely on the expensive side each one of these main units is six thousand seven hundred dollars which has a capacity of 6.5 kilowatt hours which is if you look at it from the perspective of cost per kilowatt the price for this unit is very typical each additional satellite batteries five thousand six hundred dollars and you can get 6.5 kilowatt hours in each battery so effectively you're coming in at a lower price point on these per kilowatt hour how they compare okay so we just ran through a lot of numbers so let's look at them through five main factors we're going to look at AC output solar input expansion brand and price now regarding AC output from top to bottom so here's how they stack up with the blue ready you can output 10 000 Watts with zendor 7600 Watts ecoflow 7200 Watts mango 6000 watts and with the renergy you can output 3500 watts and let me make a quick comment about AC output when you're shopping these and trying to determine which to buy half the numbers that are shown on the screen cut it in half when operating these devices you want to run them at about 50 percent of their output capability if you run them at a higher amount than half of their output capability on a continual basis what you'll do is you'll shorten the lifespan of the battery now sure if you need more power you can push it to the Limit but it's like a car if you Redline your engine all the time you're going to eventually blow your motor you'll wear it down for sure and similarly if you push these to the Limit all the time you're going to wear them down I'll recommend you watch my video how to power essential devices when the grid goes down in that video I go into a lot of detail explaining these principles which will help you determine which of these devices will suit your power needs now regarding 240 volt capabilities all of these units can handle this except the Lycan 5000. now of course for most of these units to Output 240 volts you have to buy two units and tie them together except for the zendor which does have the 240 volt plug-in on the front at 16 amps now for solar input capabilities like we explained on the previous AC output capability which we're assuming that you have two units tied together except for the Lichen here's how they break down if you have two blue Eddies you can actually receive up to 6000 watts of solar input zendor 6000 Watts renergy 4400 Watts the mango 4000 watts and then Eco flow at 3200 Watts now I toss some solar panels on my patio and I had a professional solar installer set up the solar panels and racks over my office I've got a little over 38 800 watts of solar panels and it's been great to power my basic needs here in my studio in my office with everything that I mentioned earlier okay so let's look at the maximum capacity each one of these can handle additionally let's put some prices to all of this to help you kind of compare how they stack up against each other now I will tell you up front that these are some very high numbers that I'm about to explain here so I'm only bringing this up because if you're really looking to power your whole house and you say hey tell me what these are going to cost if I were to push them all the way to the biggest setup so I know I can power my whole house and yeah I think these numbers are going to help you understand how they compare and I'll list their maximum capacity price for that capacity and how much it breaks down per kilowatt hour so let's run through them the first is his indoor you could push it up to 64 kilowatt hours with everything maxed out which would cost you about 38 000 and that breaks down to 59 cents per kilowatt hour now the blue Eddie you can push to a maximum of 36.8 kilowatt hours which would cost you thirty three thousand dollars and you would be paying a dollar twelve cents per kilowatt hour ecoflow you can expand it up to 21.6 kilowatt hours in total that would cost you 16 194 and that would cost you 75 cents per kilowatt hour energy now you could push this one up to 19.2 kilowatt hours that would cost you 12 868 and then that would cost you 67 cents per kilowatt hour and the final one is mango you can push that up to 14 kilowatt hours that's 13 796 dollars and that costs you 99 cents per kilowatt hour so as you can see the zendor can be pushed to the largest capacity and actually has the lowest per kilowatt cost so it wins on both ends of this equation now regarding brand recognition blue Eddy ecoflow and ranji they all have strong brand recognition within the solar Market renergy is mostly known in the DIY solar Community now mango and the zendor are the relative newcomers in the space and they're not as established as the other three why do I bring this point up as a solar product space grows I think it's important that people understand that when you buy a product factor in the brand to ensure it's a company that you trust and you know is going to be around for a while and finally if you're just looking at buying one of these units the base model without any of the expansion capabilities we've covered here's how they would stack up now for the zendor just the base unit is 6 699 that gives you 6.5 kilowatt hours of capacity and that costs a dollar oh three per kilowatt hour now the blue Eddie would cost you about forty eight hundred dollars and it would give you a capacity of 3.1 kilowatt hours that's one head unit in one add-on battery for energy it's about forty two hundred dollars that gives you 4.8 kilowatt hours and then the mango cost about four thousand dollars with 3.5 kilowatt hours and finally the Eco flow at thirty two hundred dollars and that gives you 3.6 kilowatt hours final thoughts okay I've thrown a lot of numbers at you but I wanted you to have all of these in one place so that you can understand how they stack up against each other again I'll post a link to a spreadsheet where I detail this information so you can study this information more if you'd like now if I were to break everything down that we covered here's how I would view this information if I needed a setup that I could put Outdoors the renergy like in 5000 is the way to go and if you want a system that you can easily repair you can upgrade you can swap out the batteries very easily then again the Lichen is a clear winner the only downside of this unit is its sheer size and weight it's just big and heavy and I can vouch for it as I've used it for nearly a year to power my office without any issues whatsoever if you just want raw power and lots of it in the blue Eddie AC 500 is your solution the combined AC output capability if you buy two of their head units is 10 000 Watts so even if you're are pulling 5000 Watts continuously from this which is a lot in and of itself this unit wouldn't really even break a sweat and if you need a lot of capacity then the zendor is your solution it is also the most compact for the energy density with its semi-solid state battery configuration now the only downside to this battery configuration is that it reduces the charge cycles and again this is information they actually post on their website it basically is half of what the lithium ion phosphate batteries can handle as far as charge cycles in other words the lifespan is going to be shorter now the most mature and proven if you will is the ecoflow Delta Pro it really sits in the middle of most of the numbers that we covered and it's been kind of a personal favorite of mine for a while I also love their integration with their other products such as the smart home panel the backup dual fuel generator they just really have a well thought out ecosystem built around this that allows you to expand off the unit and really tie into your home if you need it now regarding the mango power e it it doesn't really stand out in any major way plus it's new to the market by a company that I've never heard of so I would just say this if you're thinking of buying this unit I would probably recommend you look instead seriously at the ecoflow Delta Pro and really compare those first against each other now the only ability that the mango has over the ecoflow is that it can handle twenty percent more solar input but otherwise the ecoflow's capabilities and reputation really offsets that one advantage that mango has so that's my rundown I'll post some coupons Below in the description section if you're interested in these products let me ask what do you think which one of these would suit your specific needs if you're in the market shopping for one of these type of setups feel free to post your thoughts your questions and any feedback that you have below again I'll post a link to the spreadsheet that I referenced a few times in the videos you can go and study a lot of the information that we covered in the video more in depth in that spreadsheet as always stay safe out there

Channel: City Prepping

Views: 178,025

Keywords: best whole house generator, best whole house generators, best whole house generator reviews, best whole house generators 2023, best whole house generators 2022, best whole house generators reviews, best whole house generator 2022, whole house generator, best whole house generator 2023, solar generator, solar, generator, bluetti, ecoflow, backup power, emergency power, prepper, doomsday prepper, emergency preparedness, renogy lycan 5000, mango power e

Id: d9Z8YzoDKXE

Length: 23min 58sec (1438 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 03 2023