How useful are portable battery power stations for the home?

Most of us have at least one portable battery, ready to top up our phone on trips where we might not get enough time close to an outlet. And plenty of homes also have battery back-up and storage for use with their solar panels. But advances in technology mean an in-between product is also emerging, which is portable but can power anything just like the outlets in your home.

The advantage here is flexibility. Work sites can use them for their electric tools or to recharge batteries, without access to mains power. Households can also use them in areas that are difficult to get power to, such as sheds, or for camping trips and beach parties. And families can use them to keep vital appliances going for a few days if the power gets cut off, such as in a storm. They’re similar to petrol generators, but cleaner and quieter, and they’re stable and efficient enough that you can use them to charge a single phone, or run an entire office.

The Laser NRGVault PV1500 isn’t sold as being able to top up electric cars, like some more expensive models are, but it does just fine with an e-scooter.Credit: Tim Biggs

For the most part, these new power stations use lithium-ion phosphate batteries, which are the safest form of lithium-ion battery, though not completely immune to thermal runaway. So it’s still important to buy only from trusted manufacturers and charge with the included cable.

There are quite a few models on the market, but the one I’ve been testing is the NRGVault PV1500 from Australian electronics company Laser. At $1500 it’s one of the less expensive options that offers a large capacity and multiple full 240V AC outlets like you’d find in your home, but it has plenty of power and functionality, assuming you don’t need it to supply your entire house. And at 16 kilograms, it’s not too bad to lug around.

On the front of the unit is a total of 13 output ports for powering devices, including three DC ports (two barrel-style and one car adaptor), four quick-charge USB-A ports, two 100W USB-C ports and four standard Australian AC ports. They can all work at the same time, but the unit can only supply a maximum of 1500W. That’s not a huge amount compared with some of the power stations on the market — the $5000 Delta Pro 3 from China-based EcoFlow offers a maximum sustained load of 4000W — but it’s still quite a lot of juice.

For context, your fridge or TV are probably going to draw only 200W or so each. Ditto for hefty chargers like you might use for e-bikes and battery-powered tools. Chargers for phones and laptops draw much less; the likes of washing machines and small plug-in tools will draw a bit more. Many home devices and appliances have a fairly negligible draw, but 1500W may not be enough for things that need to rapidly heat (such as an air fryer or a heater), or heavy plug-in tools such as a circular saw. Personally, I found it difficult to approach the 1500W limit with the appliances and tools I tested it with. The unit will shut down in the case of an overload, and it has a resettable fuse like a regular power board.

Laser says the unit outputs pure sine wave power, meaning it’s as consistent and steady as a home power plug without needing an inverter, which you’d typically need to steady the distorted output of a generator. And I found everything I plugged in worked exactly as though it was connected to mains. An LCD display shows how much power is going in and how much is coming out, alongside an estimate of how much longer the unit will last given the current draw.

The PV1500 has a rated capacity of 1228 watt-hours, which should be enough to power some standard lights for hundreds of hours, or completely charge a standard smartphone about 70 times. It ran my household fridge for 20 hours before it conked out, and survived a whole day of yard work (recharging various Ryobi batteries multiple times) using only half of its capacity.

When it comes to recharging the power station, you can plug it into the wall where it will draw up to 1000W and fill in around two hours. If you can only plug it in for 20 minutes, I found it will fill by around 20 per cent. The other options are a 12V DC port designed to be connected to a car, which is limited to 200W so would charge pretty slowly, and a standard XT60 for charging via solar panel, which needs to be between 90W and 300W.

Again, the solar panel spec is lower than you’ll find on the highest-end power stations, which often have a port for roof-mounted panels and can take in excess of 1000W. Laser supplied a portable 300W “solar blanket” to test with the power station, and it works as a way to extend the longevity of the unit, but it’s not the case that you can just whack it in the sun and start getting 300W of input.

On a very dark day I’m only getting 7W from a solar panel, which won’t sustain much more than a very basic USB charge or some lights. But every bit of power keeps the unit lasting longer.Credit: Tim Biggs

The solar blanket really needs to be sitting outside in the morning, angled towards the sun, getting nice and saturated by the time the afternoon rays are hitting hardest. If you plug the blanket in cold you’ll get nothing, even on the sunniest days, whereas I found I could get 10W even in heavily overcast conditions if the blanket had been sitting out. All this is to say that a solar panel could potentially get you power to use all week on a summer camping trip out in the open, but it would take some planning to get consistent results if you’re using the power station all the time at home.

Laser does also sell a $500 power station, which could be a suitable choice if your power draw will be low. It has the same ports but only two AC instead of four, and can only handle 500W of output. It will also only take 90W of solar charging, matching the company’s smaller $300 solar blanket.

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