I want to clear the air and express my honest thoughts on how I feel about the state of sustainable energy, mostly, how it has been pitched to us from consumer-driven marketing. Here is this simple, magical box that can be powered by the Sun and can run all of your appliances with a simple press of the button.
The cold harsh reality is Bluetti is nothing more than an energy storage company. Everything they sell or do revolves around a BATTERY. No working battery? Congratulations you have an expensive paperweight. Solar is just a buzzword that marketing takes advantage of to capitalize off an influencer driven market. When the overlanding scene exploded in the past 5 or so years, you were not pitched an idea of a battery, but rather an ecosystem that offers you truly off-grid sustainable power. And it is that, however, the entire ecosystem falls apart if the battery fails. Your solar panels and DC-to-DC charger is pointless if that occurs.
Also, because Bluetti is an energy-centric company they focus on incremental changes (such as energy density upgrades) to its battery technology which baits you into buying newer and newer items. I fell for this trap when I bought the Elite 300. It’s a great unit, don’t get me wrong. I have had not many MAJOR problems with most of my Bluetti batteries, but I came to the realization that this is purely marketing. You have to be careful to not bite at the newest offering because they realize every single one of their batteries will likely eventually end up in a landfill due to the inconsistencies of LifePO4.
Another thing they like to brush to the side is how cumbersome these batteries are to move. They are not light. Marketing likes to paint this picture like they are extremely portable and easy to use, but sans the power stations that are under 300Wh, the rest are very bulky and heavy. Generally the heavier power stations are relegated to a permanent spot in your rig with the wiring built AROUND the power station. It simply does not MOVE. If I need a portable power station I can take outside, I thus need an additional smaller battery (aka you are baited into buying another unit). They vastly misrepresent how cumbersome it is to move these power stations because its not just about the weight, its about the inconvenience of moving it from your build.
The batteries are also extremely sensitive to humidity and temperature changes. They are marketed as sustainable energy devices that allow you the flexibility and freedom to go where ever you want, but this is entirely dictated by the environmental conditions on the outside OR your ability to control the climate on the inside of your rig. Lithium batteries hate high humidity, extremely high temperatures, and will not even charge below 32 degrees.
Attempting to charge below 32 degrees risks bricking your battery and the only backup plan you have is hope and pray the BMS saves you from your mistake. This means unless you have a way to maintain complete control over the climate in your rig, you have no choice but to only use them during fair weather season only. This makes perfect sense because we are generally only recharging them from solar and what is the point of charging them in the winter when the sun is not out? This is not what you need to think about.
You need to think about how do you PROTECT your investment during the time of the year when its NOT in use. Remember, Bluetti sold you a battery that offers you the ability to power your appliances off grid. An expensive battery. EVERYTHING hinges on the battery. Charging and usage is pointless IF the battery fails.
Heat is also one of the primary accelerators of battery degradation. Our smartphones use the same lithium battery technology but the key differentiating factor is they don’t sit all day baking in a truck camper/metal box. We generally take them home inside a climate controlled home or work in a climate controlled building thus its lifespan is much greater.
Storing a lithium ion battery at 100% SOC in a non-climate controlled room where it averages 100 degrees during the day will kill 25% of the entire SOC batteries capacity in just 1 calendar year! Compare that to just 3-5% in 1 calendar year if you stored it at 100% SOC in your climate controlled home, and just a measly 1% loss if you kept the battery stored per Bluetti’s recommendation of 30-50% at 70F/21C. Another drawback is the BMS treats ALL cells as either discharged or charged to protect the battery health. Pretend that 3.6V is a fully charged cell and you have 16 cells in total. If 15 of the 16 cells are at 3.6V and ONE measly cell is at 2.5V volts, the BMS treats the battery as dead. Not a lot can go wrong for the entire unit to fail.
We often don’t think about the most important aspect of the “solar” power station. THE BATTERY! Do everything in your power to protect it or else you’ll end up with a $1,000 paperweight.