Which Company Makes The Largest Portable Solar Generator/Power Station?
Portable solar generators, also known as power stations, are portable batteries great to have when going camping, during power outages, in emergencies, or just whenever you’re away from a household outlet.
These portable batteries can be recharged with solar panels, which is why they’re often referred to as solar generators. They don’t take gasoline, and the only way to recharge them is via a wall outlet with an AC charger, a car charger, solar panels, or sometimes a USB C PD port.
Related Product: Charge Your Power Station With The Portable Rockpals 100W Solar Panel
But which company makes the best largest power station? As in, which one has the most WH (watt-hours) and most battery capacity? The batteries store the electricity that you’re going to need to run the inverter and other ports.
In this article I am going to share which available solar generators can store the most electricity, and talk a little bit about what these beasts are capable of.
Without further ado, let’s take a look at and do a comparison.
Best Large Power Stations – Specifications And Comparison
How Big Of A Power Station Do You Need?
It all depends on what you need to power and for how long.
You don’t necessarily need a very large power station to power small electronics like phones, tablets, laptops, CPAP machines, and a small coffee maker for a weekend.
But if you’re going to use it as your main power source for an RV or your home in an emergency, you should get a solar generator with as much battery capacity as possible.
Even if you plan on recharging the batteries with solar, it’s better to have too much than too little.
Portable Solar Generators/Power Stations Explained – What Can They Do?
As I mention in the intro, a portable power station is a portable battery that lets you power and charge your electronic devices and appliances in places where you don’t have access to electricity.
But there is more to them than just the battery. There is also an inverter, a charge controller, a BMS, a display, and sometimes wireless charging pads, flashlights, and expandability ports.
The three main parts are the battery, the inverter, and the solar charge controller.
The Battery
The reason the large power stations are very heavy is due to the battery. This is what stores the electricity and is how we know how long a specific device or appliance will be able to run.
Companies advertise the battery capacity in watt-hours, since that makes it easy to compare a solar generator from one company to a model from a different company.
But what is a watt-hour? A watt-hour is a unit of measurement for power over a period of time, for example an hour.
So let’s say you have a device that requires 100W to run, and a power station with 2000Wh to power it with. By dividing the two we will get 20 (2000Wh/100W).
That means that the solar generator should be able to power the 100W device for 20 hours. If it’s powering using an AC outlet, we also need to consider the inverter efficiency, which is usually around 85%.
Add that to the calculation, and we should be able to run the 100W device for 17 hours (20*0.85).
The Inverter
So the batteries store the electricity, but since it’s usually 12V batteries, how does the solar generator turn the 12V power into 110V/120V?
That’s what the inverter is there for. It turns 12V DC power into 120V AC power, which is how a portable box can have AC outlets just like in your home.
But an inverter has its own rating. Somestimes 200W, sometimes 2000W. The rating tells us how much power the inverter can output continuously.
The first rating often have a second rating as well, or surge watts. This is how much it can output in a short amount of time, usually less than 30 seconds.
So we should stick to the first number when we try to figure out whether it can power a specific appliance or not.
As an example, the Yeti 6000X has a 2000W inverter with 3500W surge watts. A regular 15A household outlet can output 1800W, which means that the Yeti is actually more powerful than a regular outlet.
Note that the inverter can not output this much power to each outlet at the same time, but to them both combined.
So what can you run with a 2000W outlet? Here are a couple of electronics and appliances and how much they usually require:
- TV – 50-150W
- Laptop – 100-200W
- Desktop computer – 100-400W
- Toaster – 700-1200W
- Microwave – 800-1500W
- Air fryer – 1300-1500W
- Space heater – 800-1500W
If you have power-hungry appliances or tools, you should try to figure out how many watts they require to run before purchasing a power station.
The Solar Charge Controller
A solar charge controller regulates the voltage and transfers the generated electricity to the 12V batteries. This is essential if you want to recharge a power station with solar panels.
Since power stations have solar charge controllers, you shouldn’t connect a solar panel with a built-in controller.
The Best Solution – Combine With A Gas Generator
In my opinion, it’s smart to combine a solar generator with a power station.
What I mean is that when you can’t charge your power station, bring out a gas generator to recharge it or to supply electricity to your devices.
It’s not always going to be sunny, and if you find yourself in a storm without electricity, a gas generator can be a lifesaver.
I have combined my solar generator with a portable inverter generator, the WEN 56203i. This is powerful enough to charge all of the power stations I compared earlier in the post.
If you consider how fast you can charge some of them, like the EcoFlow Delta Max, you’re going to quickly be able to replenish the batteries and rely on it.
