A hurricane is approaching our residence in Florida but once more. Hurricane Idalia goes to strike the Gulf Coast of Florida within the subsequent a number of hours, and meaning we’re susceptible to flooding, wind harm, and lack of electrical energy. Final 12 months, Hurricane Ian pummeled our area. We had been fortunate to solely undergo some roof harm and lack of electrical energy for a couple of day. Nevertheless, dropping electrical energy for so long as we did wasn’t enjoyable and brought about numerous issues. This 12 months, because of Bluetti offering us with an EP500 power storage station (a $3,999 retail worth), we really feel rather more ready and prepared for what occurs. (We additionally picked up some sandbags yesterday. Although, this 12 months, we haven’t determined to place hurricane shudders up — but — for the reason that hurricane is aiming a bit north of us as a substitute of proper at us and is predicted to turn out to be a class 3 hurricane relatively than a class 5 hurricane.)

I opened the Bluetti EP500 a few weeks in the past with a pal and former neighbor to be able to see the way it labored and to check it out. Beneath is a abstract of all the things I believe there’s to know in regards to the energy station, with the highlights in daring. I’m additionally together with a brief video of my pal and me explaining a few of these options and how you can get the EP500 working.

The system is tremendous straightforward to make use of and fairly slick. It suits properly into the lounge of a house, and principally simply seems to be like a large pc. It’s clear and chic. There’s virtually nothing to essentially be taught, because it’s virtually solely intuitive, however let me undergo it.

Initially, unboxing the system was fairly straightforward regardless of the system being tremendous heavy. They packaged it intelligently so that you just don’t need to do a lot heavy lifting or odd contortions to get it out. After clipping the straps across the field, you simply slide the cardboard up and off. Then you definitely’ve bought a bit of additional packaging to tug off and you may rather more simply carry the EP500 off of the pallet. (We initially considered tilting the field to get it out, and we’re joyful we didn’t — that might be dangerous and was fully pointless.)

Proper as you get in there, you’ll be able to see the cool charging spots for wirelessly charging telephones or different units. Naturally, we had been tempted to stay a telephone on there straight away to see the way it match, and it match properly.

The Bluetti system has wheels on the underside that make it very straightforward to maneuver round. The small ones on the again rotate for simple steering and parking, they usually embrace wheel locks for whenever you need the EP500 to remain in place. I’m maintaining it within the pantry when not in use, and it was surprisingly straightforward to steer the massive battery round different gadgets and park it neatly within the nook.

You’ve bought two “on” buttons. I assume that this might confuse folks for some time in the event that they don’t take a look at the consumer guide. The primary “on” change is on the again, backside, left. The black change you’ll be able to see right here:

You too can watch us switching it on through the YouTube video above.

After clicking this change on, there’s an “on” button on the display screen on the entrance — an apparent round button that has a inexperienced mild illuminate round it when turned on.

You then faucet “DC ON” and/or “AC ON” through the touchscreen to be able to activate the retailers. Within the image above, you’ll be able to see that each the DC ports and AC ports are activated, however there’s solely electrical energy being drawn/used through AC ports.

Above “DC Load” and “AC Load,” you’ll be able to see that there are related shows for a way a lot electrical energy is being added through photo voltaic PV (I’ll get again to that) or through the grid (by plugging the battery into an electrical energy outlet). There are a bunch of different settings, which you’ll see briefly within the video above, however we didn’t change any of them.

We plugged within the TV, my pc (not seen right here, however seen within the video), and an electrical bike (through an extension twine that prolonged into the storage). We additionally wirelessly charged a few telephones for some time. It took about 8 hours to go from 75% cost to 50% cost.

What about recharging the Bluetti EP500?

As famous above, it’s quite simple to recharge the power storage system. Simply plug it into a standard electrical energy outlet. What stunned me was how briskly it charged. It went from 49% to 100% in simply 2–3 hours (I’m unsure precisely since I didn’t see when it completed). It does breathe a bit when recharging and generally when it use — a fan cools off the system — however I positively wouldn’t name it loud. It’s much like my Macbook Professional when it’s respiratory exhausting to chill off.

There’s one different option to recharge the Bluetti EP500, as I famous above — through photo voltaic panels. You should purchase the system with a transportable photo voltaic package, or you should purchase the photo voltaic panels individually ($449 every). I haven’t obtained the photo voltaic panels but, however they’re on the best way. I’ll comply with up with a evaluation of these as soon as I get them and check them out.

Hopefully we received’t lose electrical energy from Hurricane Idalia, but when we do, I really feel significantly better about how we’ll deal with it than how we dealt with lack of electrical energy from Hurricane Ian. I’d plug our fridge into the Bluetti EP500, in addition to a fan, my pc, our telephones, and maybe a transportable cookstove now and again. If we get actually unfortunate and lose electrical energy for greater than a day, properly … I hope the photo voltaic panels can be delivered by then.

BLUETTI offered the EP500 freed from cost for the needs of this CleanTechnica evaluation. 

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