Good afternoon. Name is Deb. I want to first say kWH, interverters, AMPS, etc. mean so little to me. As they say, this is not my wheelhouse. Given that…I want to explain my goal and what individuals suggest.
I currently have the AC300 & B300. I bought this at an excellent price ~2 years ago ($1100). I primarily bought it as a back-up for my PC / Monitors (I work from home). I know it can charge other things as I had to use it for two fans when AC stopped working. I now own a house in Jacksonville, Florida. Primarily, this would be for outages, but if I can use it to power everything during the day with solar panels and then use the unit at night to offset electricity, that would be good also.
I am considering trading my unit in. I saw that bluetti has an EP500 PRO renewed / refurbished but I don’t know if that is sufficient or need to upgrade to EP800 or EP900. I also assume I will need a subpanel (??) and an electrician to hook everything up. I’ve included my average kWh/day for each month below for reference if this helps:
I would like feedback as to what your thoughts are. The goal is to do this cost-effectively (either EP500 PRO with a couple of batteries if this is sufficient or the EP800/EP900 with a couple of batteries). Thank you in advance for your suggestions.
Hi @debcap, Based on the data you provided, your household electricity consumption is quite high, and the capacity of the B300 and EP500PRO is insufficient to meet your needs. Therefore, we recommend upgrading to the EP800 or EP900 system. It would be even better if you could integrate solar panels.
If you need more specific assistance, please feel free to contact our customer service at sale@bluettipower.com.
Not disagreeing with your suggested device based on usage, however, their usage per day is very low, especially for Florida. The average daily usage for the US is about 30 kWh per day, and for Florida it’s closer to 40 kWh per day. Here in Texas it’s about 36 kWh.
When I first saw this post, I was jealous of their low kWh per day :)
I have an AC500 and 6 B300s batteries. Most of the house is running just off this. The way my house is laid out, I just plug everything directly into the AC500 in my den, and am able to run power cables hidden behind furniture to the kitchen and bedroom. There is no need to tie into the house wiring. Only the overhead house lights are on the grid. Floor and table lamps are plugged into the AC500. My electric bill shows I use $0.89/day.
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I had to make adjustments for some things, like running appliances during the day and not at night.
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In Summer, I can’t power my central air conditioning so I bought 2 high efficiency window A/Cs. It worked so well that I added one of those portable A/Cs where you run a exhaust hose to a window. I use that in the bedroom (I can’t use a window A/C here because of the window design) with the rest of the house closed off and enjoy a nice 64 degrees all night without draining the battery before the sun comes up.
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Winter is a different story. Electric heaters are crazy power hungry. Combine that with shorter daylight days and I have to turn them off when the sun goes down. Luckily, I’m in Vegas so we laugh at those in cities buried in snow, plus my house is really well insulated from drafts so I get by with a minimal amount of heat. Those oil-filled electric heaters seem to be the most efficient heaters out there, but of course they take time to heat a room. At night I use a full size electric heating pad that draws only 100 watts or so, and after you preheat the bed, it’s like climbing into a hot tub
