Earlier this year, Bluetti made a splash with one of the most powerful and expandable portable power stations on the market. Now they have an even more powerful power station, but a lot more heavy. Meet the EP500Pro with a ground-breaking 5100Wh LiFePO4 battery pack and a 3000W pure sine wave AC inverter.
For comparison, Bluetti’s AC200MAX has more than double the power capacity of most available mobile power stations with its 2048WH capacity. That can run our entire 20-ft tiny house on wheels for 1-2 days without a recharge. So imagine what the EP500Pro can do, and can definitely power our small A-frame home. It’s best suited as a standard home backup power system, but it can also be used as a large capacity everyday tiny home or RV power source.
Though, with all that power comes a complicated installation to get max benefits, an RV power quirk to be aware of, and a whole lot of weight. It’s incredibly heavy at 182 lbs! Fortunately, it has 4 wheels. It’s definitely movable but not portable enough to be carried.
Bluetti EP500Pro as Whole House or Backup Power Source
The EP500Pro can easily power our entire small A-frame. On a full charge, it could run our whole house for up to a few days, which is fantastic for a backup power source during an outage. Overall, there are 2 primary ways to utilize it at home:
1) A plug & play power station: we plug in all our electronics and essential appliances to it directly. In the middle of the summer, being able to plug in our fridge and portable AC would be incredibly helpful. For an 8000 BTU air conditioner, it will last about 1.5 days. And if you turn it off at night, you could really make that stretch. The EP500Pro can run a large 700W fridge for about 2.5 days. But our apartment-size fridge uses less than half that, so we’d covered most of the week.
2) But to really enjoy the maximum benefits of the EP500Pro, you’ll want to use it as a grid-tie system and connect it to solar panels. To do this, you’ll need to connect the EP500Pro to your home’s main electrical panel. You can connect two units to double your capacity. So first, you’ll need to buy the $1500 Bluetti Smart Home Panel, and then you want to hire a licensed electrician. The proper installation is quite complicated, requiring special equipment and know-how to avoid getting hurt.
This is where it can become more than emergency backup power and can significantly lower your electric bills. It uses peak load shifting technology to use its own battery to run parts of your house instead of taking energy from the grid when the energy rates are the highest. Because power companies charge more when the demand is at its highest. During off-peak hours, it can recharge. This is done through the Time Control UPS function.
It’s one of 4 UPS modes that you can use and customize to best meet your needs. If the electrical grid fails, a seamless UPS backup functionality can kick in. So the EP500Pro will automatically become your home energy source. This safeguards any desktop PC, file servers, and other sensitive devices from data loss or damage. You can control the UPS modes and all other functions via the App. Connect to it via Bluetooth or WiFi.
You can connect solar panels to the EP500Pro get a whopping 2400W of solar input—that’s industry-leading. And you can double that if you connect 2, EP500 Pros. With solar power, and if your power needs are low in a traditional small house, it could be used as your primary 24hr/everyday power source when paired with solar panels. It could definitely do the job for the typical tiny home.
The EP500Pro can be recharged every way you could possibly think of. Completely charging takes approximately 3.5-5.5 hours, depending on the method. Solar is the most efficient, followed by AC wall charging. Dual charging with a max of 2400W solar and 3000W AC inputs, it can top it up in as little as 1.8 hours from 80%.
Learn more in the product review above and on the product page.