expiredowl posted Feb 01, 2022 07:57 AM
Item 1 of 6
Item 1 of 6
expiredowl posted Feb 01, 2022 07:57 AM
Costco Members: EcoFlow River Pro Portable Power Station
& More + Free Shipping$430
$579
25% offCostco Wholesale
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With the Tesla pricing, that's about $778/kWh (without taxes, installation, circuitry, etc), and the Powerwall is not portable, if that matters to some of us.
With the EcoFlow pricing, it's $791/kWh (without taxes and still need something like a power transfer switch installed) at the Costco price or $1,000/kWh (at the EcoFlow retail price of $3,600) and $750/kWh for the extension batteries (at the EcoFlow retail price of $2,699).
I consider the EcoFlow Delta Pro model as a DIY (as someone else has put it) starter version of a home battery backup system, with some other benefits, such as having clean energy for camping and other peripheral uses. To have it fully able to be a home backup system for a decent amount of time (12-24 hours), I will probably need 4 of these linked in series, which might be the max at this point in time. With ~14kWh, that should be more than enough for my essential needs, if I turn off non-essentials. (I'm using around 6-8kWh for essentials per day and about 12-14kWh for a typical day that includes non-essentials, too. This is in San Francisco, so no A/C.)
The Delta Pro can power essential things for at least a few hours in a serious pinch.
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ie. My utility's TOU plan is $0.11/kWh overnight and $0.56/kWh during peak day 2-9pm.
Even with just 10kWH total battery capacity, that's $4.50/day savings, or $1,642/year saved (assuming one uses all that electricity during peak hours).
That's a long peak though, wow.
Granted it probably not more efficient than the Ecoflow panels but I've seen a wide range of efficiency on different peoples tests. My knockoff is giving me 80/100 watts so I'm good with that with my little adapter. It's not as pretty but it works for me.
The display says my fridge consumes 105 watts running In practice it supports the fridge for two days. Consider that these things do not like to be left standby fully charged and the battery cells go bad unless cycled once a month. Settings has charging modes. Battery Saver mode keeps it charged 35% to 85%. When I expect a storm outage I must switch it to Performance mode so that it will charge up 100% and deep cycle to 13%..
Recharging: The highest grade Yetti 600 watt charger is required to be useful at all. This way you run the generator 8 hours to recharge the Yetti 50%. That costs $200 extra and it is annoyingly loud. Yetti 6000x has become a fixture in the hallway so the fridge can stay plugged in. We have power failures every time the wind blows due to tree limbs falling on power lines. Outages last 8 hours to 8 days.
The 3000x is more useful for supporting tech. The gateway modem draws about 9 watts. Yetti has USB C-PD and 12 volt outlets too.
The Tesla Powerwall is the only way to go for home battery back-up. Very expensive proposition with solar and installation required but some may be able to get help from subsidies.
Batteries and the inverters inside wear out making battery power stations luxury items at current pricing. In combination a hand carry gasoline inverter generator a 6000 watt-hour bank can get you through short term outages using only the bare essentials which does not include HVAC say cooking with a portable induction or Instant Pot, internet, laptops, tv, possibly a window shaker ac.
"The Federal Tax Credit will apply to the cost of the solar portion of Solar Roof as well as the cost of Powerwall. The incentive amount is equivalent to a percentage of the eligible costs. The rate is currently set at 26% in 2022, and 22% in 2023*. To qualify for the Federal Tax Credit in a particular year, the eligible solar equipment must be installed by December 31st of that year."
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If you're thinking about these over a generator, these are not comparable unless you're using very little power or using multiple in various locations around the house.
For perspective, 1 pack would power an oven for 2 hours.
I have used 3 of these in mini home off grid situations, they work great to power a mini split, fridge, maybe the washer/dryer, and outlets for a few days. These are super plug and play when adding solar or other power sources.
I use 2 of these to run a camper A/C in overnight hours to avoid the noise of an engine.
For comparison, a PowerWall is a 10.5kWh battery, whereas the EcoFlow River Pro is 0.72kWh - less than 7% the capacity. The PowerWall is also directly wired into your house so it switches over automatically - you're not just plugging in individual appliances.
There are also other competing products but none of them are cheap.
Power is heavy, the mini houses I've built with off grid capabilities house well over 500lbs of batteries/inverters/controllers/switches. Add panels and its even more.
A plug in power bank for a well pump is perfect.
A generator is perfect for a whole house.
The highest tier (Pro) doesn't even have 240V - and the specs don't really advertise it well. Even in the manual I can't find the NEMA distinction for the plug (TT-30 for reference). Any gas generator will have these specs loud and clear. It's almost as if they want to call this a generator and parade it as one but purposefully obfuscate the specs.
It appears as if you can get 240V out of it, I mean they have photos of dryers and such on the website, but it seems you need a Smart Home Panel, which is "Coming Soon" at some unknown price. Alternately you can get a "Double Voltage Hub" (which of course requires 2 Pro's) [and this item is sold out but only costs $140 if you could buy it]. The hub can apparently support "7200W, 30A". So the bare minimum to get 240V would require (2) Pro units and the hub that you can't buy and that package will cost around $6000 and only give you 7.2kWh of energy, around 1/3 of the avg household's daily consumption. I wouldn't consider these, in any form, competitive for home power backup use. For reference, your avg clothes dryer uses 3kW, so 2 units with the connector above would be roughly capable of drying 2 loads of laundry, give or take.
I guess this might have a place in an apartment for power outages for 120V appliances, or some limited camping applications. It's 100 lb, not something I'd want to lug around, and not enough onboard storage for any length of time really, only 3.6kWh. That's around 15% of the average household's energy usage per day. And, it's $2850 *on sale*.
One guy in the Bronx had a smaller unit and was powering his TV and internet with a smaller Ecoflow during a power outage.
Expand your horizon.
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720Wh ÷ 130W = 5.5 hours
The thing though is that the 65W is to both charge the battery and run the laptop.
Right now, I am looking at a laptop with a fully charged battery.
It is drawing less than 30W measured with a power meter.
If you want to be absolutely certain, I would buy a one River Pro for each laptop.
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