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Home Owners / Store it for later

Batteries for home owners

A battery stores midday sun for the evening and keeps the fridge running in an outage. The right kind depends on whether you want to plug in or wire in.

What matters

  • Plug-in: a power station the fridge plugs into works in a blackout with no electrician. Anker lists the F3800 Plus at 3,840 Wh.
  • Wired-in: a whole-home battery with a transfer switch powers house circuits. Anker describes the SOLIX E10 as 6 to 90 kWh with a 200 A Power Dock.
  • Size from your loads. Your fridge's yellow EnergyGuide label gives yearly kWh; divide by 365 for a day.

Watch out for

  • Never plug a battery or generator into a wall outlet to power the house. It can energize the grid.
  • Grid-tied plug-in batteries need professional installation in the US, TechRadar reports, and EcoFlow's own pages disagree on which states allow self-install.

Equipment we have researched

Not for sale through us yet. Specs are copied from the cited source on the date shown; nothing here is hands-on tested.

Anker SOLIX

Anker SOLIX F3800 Plus

Portable power station

Capacity
3840 Wh
Flies?
No (over 160 Wh)
Not yet available

EcoFlow

EcoFlow STREAM Ultra

Plug-in battery with built-in microinverter

Capacity
1.92 kWh
Grid-side output
800 W rated
UL 3700
Not verified
Not yet available

Keep going

Sources