Emergency Solar Power Solutions and You

I also want to make it clear upfront that this is not an ad. Some of the equipment I tested was provided for free as review units, some of it was purchased with my own money and some with company money. I'll try to make it pretty clear at each point, but I promise it doesn't matter ari my opinions on any specific product. No one paid us in any way for their inclusion in this episode. Anyway, back to my stupid waterbed. The first thing to know about waterbeds is

that they are surprisingly cheap. They cost about as much as an equivalent sized mattress. Knew, so not cheap, But the one I bought cost the same as any delivery mattress sold for, and cheaper than some of them. The reason that most people can't afford a waterbed isn't the actual cost of the bed itself. It's that landlords are terrified of the things, and so you can't get one

if you don't own your own home. In case you're curious, my desire to own a waterbed is entirely the result of the fact that, as a small child, my aunt and uncle fell upon hard times and had to live with us for a while. Then for another while they lived elsewhere, but their stuff stayed with us. That stuff included a waterbed, and for a few glorious months it was my waterbed. I have craved the insane high of

waterbed ownership ever since. For three perfect years. Then I slept in wavy comfort until about two days before I wrote this episode, my bed sprang a pinhole leak. I don't know how you might guess a cat, but the actual bladder that contains the water is inside and underneath a very thick, padded frame that cat claws can't really puncture. I should also know that the bladder sits inside a vinyl sort of soft cage, so that when it sprang a leak, it got some of my sheets wet, but

it did not cause damage to my home anyway. Because waterbeds are the kind of product that only an insane manchild would dare to own, fixing a hole in one is not the same as performing maintenance on your regular mattress, because the kinds of beds that reasonable people own don't spring leaks. To patch the leak, then I had to purchase a patch kit. But you can't apply a patch kit to what is effectively a soft bladder filled with

roughly a metric ton of water. I did do the bare minimum of research here, and king size waterbeds weigh around two thousand pounds. Now that's not all water weight, but it is basically all water weight. I bring this up because I'm proud of myself for guessing right. So to apply the patch we had to first drain the bed, which necessitated attaching a hose to one of the spigots

through which we had originally filled the bed. Because of the layout of my home and the ground outside of the window where we intended to pour the water, we couldn't get the hosts started without assistance. The kind of assistance that you would say, need to suck gasoline free if a stranger's truck were you hard up for fuel money. Thankfully, my roommate had a wetback which we were able to hook up to the hose, but how to power the

wet back well. We could have run an extra long extension cord, but mine were all in use for various insane projects around the farm, and instead I opted to wheel out the solar generator that I had filled with the beneficence of the sun God Raw just a couple of days earlier. The generator was one of two similar products I tested for this episode, a Jackery SG two thousand plus, which had been sent to me by the

good people at Jackery in previous weeks. I'd tested it by powering my deep freeze and a refrigerator, and in case you're wondering, with the panels outside in the sun, I got a little over a day before things ran dry on my refrigerator. If I'd had the panels in a better position, I could have had longer and the deep freeze it would have been able to power essentially indefinitely,

because deep freezes are actually insanely efficient machines. I also used it to run a heat gun for my friend's art project, which is about as intense a test of output as you can run a battery through short of powering your home, and it handles that. In terms of specs, this battery is part of a more modular system that you could wire into power your home or off grid setup. You can actually attach this to your breaker. It has a maximum output of six thousand watts in parallel connection

and one twenty to two forty expandable voltage. For a rough idea of what that means, it can power most household electronics and even power tools for a while. You'd get about one and a half hours of running a home AC unit, and more like two two and a half. You know, with a portable unit or a window unit. You could charge this thing too full in two hours with good sunlight if you had six two hundred watt panels attached in perfect sunlight, which is another three thousand

or so dollars in panels. But that's not an insignificant thing to be able to do, mind you, that would mean just running your race most of the day and nothing else. Of these are cheap products in Jackery's case, the battery itself runs about two thousand dollars. I understand that's out of reach, perhaps wildly so for a lot of people. We will be talking about cheaper options at the end, but it is an unavoidable fact that unless you are a skilled electrician and scavenger, setting up substantial

solar systems costs money period. Jackery actually represents one of the more affordable options for a plug and play home backup system that is also portable, i e. Can be taken camping or hauled away with your shit during an evacuation. I should note that you can connect the Jackery SG two thousand plus directly to your breaker, and also connect the battery to other similar Jackery battery generators to g

additional capacity and output from it. I tested another solar generator system for this episode, the Genniverse Home Power O two, which was provided to me by Genniverse. Both the Genniverse and Jackery systems are similar enough that they can use each other's solar panels and operate in basically the same manner. This product is cheaper. Other reviews I've read suggests the Genier system might be more robust, lasting longer, over time.

It is certainly heavier and thus has a higher capacity around twenty four hundred watt hours as opposed to a little over two thousand for the Jaggery system. Both of these can be the basis of an off grid or full backup power system for your home, and we'll be talking about home off grid power in future episodes. I want to make clear upfront that what I am advising you on today is the quality and utility of different solar generator battery products for emergency power. So let's talk

about what emergency means. The primary emergency you might encounter that a battery solar setup would help with is a power outage at your home. In that case, you have a couple of immediate and real needs. I will list these from most basic and easy cheapest to fill to most expensive and difficult to meet. Number one would be to keep your devices and stuff like flashlights that are chargeable topped off so you can keep in contact with your community and stay aware of breaking news on whatever

emergency you happen to be in. Being able to entertain yourself with books and movies does, in my view, count as one purpose for these systems in an emergency because morale ain't nothing. Number two is being able to run emergency cooling devices, starting with fans and terminating in stuff like window AC units or even portable camping AC units. Number three is being able to keep a fridge going

so your food doesn't spoil. If you're prepping for disaster, you should have storable food, anything from freeze dried stuff to beans and rice, et cetera. But losing all of your shit in an outage is expensive and annoying, and it's nice to be able to avoid. The most achievable of these systems for a person of normal income is number one, and if you have disposable income at all, you can afford some sort of emergency solar setup to

keep your phone or laptop and rechargeable lights going. There are a wide variety of battery packs that have solar panels built into them. I have tried a lot of these over the years, and I have never once been happy with the quality, either of their ability to charge in the sun or to last over time. The system that I currently take with me on trips is made by a company called Goal zero, who produce a variety

of solar battery and charger products. I purchase for myself a Nomad thirteen solar panel set, which folds into something that approximates the size of a trapper keeper set you had as a kid in school. I've had this for years. I take it with me on every flight as my carry on. I have it and two batteries, which are different incarnations of Goal zero's Schirpa one hundred on me wherever I go. The schrip On one hundred has a little three prong outlet you can charge basically any laptop

on it. You could even do like emergency power for a computer. I think with it this and one battery would allow me to keep my phone going for emergency purposes indefinitely. Two batteries and sharres. I'm able to travel with roughly three or four working days of power for my laptop and phone wherever I go, and that's without me actually trying to recharge them using the panels. You can find various years of this battery model on Amazon or at other retailers, from two hundred dollars on up.

The latest model retails for three hundred dollars off Goal Zero's website. These batteries are TSA approved, as are the panels. I have never had an issue flying with them. Obviously in different countries, your experience may vary, but I have taken these things to most parts of the world, and again I haven't had an issue. They have varying sizes, but the Nomad one hundred, which is one hundred watt hours,

runs about three hundred bucks. So you're looking at five or six hundred dollars for this traveling setup, which is also great to keep in your home and just have less a bit. You know, if you find used versions on eBay or wherever, which is often possible, that's not an insignificant cost. But if you're building an emergency kit

over time, most people are capable of bearing that cost. Again, over time, you could just start with the battery, which is the most initially useful part of the kit, and then you could get a panel set six months or whatever a year later. And this brings me to what I'm talking about quantifiably when I discuss a disaster and what you actually need when we're talking about emergency power in a disaster. It is uncommon for the average US consumer to lose power for more than an hour or

two at a time. In twenty eighteen, most consumers lost less than two hours of power per year without quote major events. With major events, that number leaped to six hours per person per year on average. In twenty seventeen, it was closer to eight. As we deal with more climate change, more natural disasters, all of these things are going to become inevitably more common. These are also all averages of huge numbers of people in huge areas of terrain.

I will guess that the percentage of people listening to this who have as adults lost power for a day or more at a time is very close to one hundred percent. Now, given the averages, you might consider just perching battery power units without solar panels, because in most instances, what you're trying to do is ensure that if your phone is dead and there's a bad storm and you run out of power by the time you get home, a two or three hour outage doesn't leave you unable

to contact your people or emergency services. I have a fuckload of different portable batteries because I try to keep enough in my work bag wherever I go to function in my job for most of a week without power when I go on trips. This kind of preparation has stood me in good stead in places like Syria, Iraq and the desperate wilds of Seattle that one time. But if you're not going to such terrifying hellscapes, you can probably get a suitable battery that's reasonably tough for under

one hundred dollars. And we will continue talking about batteries and talking about you know, next kind of home solutions and eventually cheap solutions. But you know what's not cheap is the products and services that support this podcast. Affordable

but not cheap. Anyway, here's these ads. We're back and we're talking about portable batteries, right And my only note here is that if you're buying portable batteries, you know, stuff not necessarily to run on solar, just to have some extra juice with you wherever you'd go to keep

it home in an emergency. These fluctuate wildly in quality, and when it comes to disaster kit, to something that you need to work in an emergency, it can be worth going with a brand that is a known quantity with a long record and a lot of testing done on their products, rather than whatever the Amazon algorithm spits

out when you Google battery. The advantage of a small portable folding setup like the one I have from Goal zero is that you can take it with you and have it on demand if shit happens when you're traveling, or if you have to evacuate and it's idiot proof right. A good option if you just want something in your home to keep your devices topped off is what I'd

call a large small battery generator. These are a couple of steps below products like the Jackery two thousand to the Geniverse that I tried, but above the handheld little batteries that many of you have already. The two examples of this product category that I have and have tested are the Yeti four hundred from Goal zero and the

anchor a n Ker Solix Solix C eight hundred. The Yeti four hundred is the product I purchased with my own money and what I've taken with me for years into the mountains when I go shooting or hunting, usually with a set of folding panels. This ensures that if my car dies and I've been dumb enough to let my jumper box that I keep with me die, I have a backup that I can use to charge my jumper box. I also have a convenient way to top off my phone or my E reader or my SAT phone,

both for normal use and in an emergency. It handles extreme cold and extreme heat well, and that's not always something you can take for granted with batteries. Again, kind of top of the list is that I am an idiot. I don't know much about electricity, and these products are pretty idiot proof. When it comes to my YETI four hundred or the C eight hundred from Anchor, I keep them both plugged into the wall at all times that

I can grab either for an emergency. Now, the Solix C eight hundred that I have was sent to me as a review unit by Solix, and by necessity I have not been able to subject it to the years of rigorous real life testing that my Goal zero YETI

four hundred has endured. I will note that it is well reviewed, and from the exploration I have done on it, which does not include years of testing but does include a decent amount of reading and some testing, I think it's better constructed and more conveniently laid out in the Goal zero, and it also gets you about twice the storage nearly eight hundred watt hours as opposed to a

bit over four hundred. Both products cost the same price around six hundred dollars, although older generations are often available cheaper online. New and used. Either is enough to keep a family of Force phones charged for a two or

three day outage without severe rationing. You can get a lot more obviously on the anchor, and you might not want to have someone like gaming on an alien Ware laptop or whatever with either, but you can charge your laptops and the like off of them if you want to, like watch a movie at the end of the night, you're all huddled together there in the dark. That's not going to be something you have to stress out about too much. Again, Boncer Solex is going to give you

a lot more juice to play around with. But either should be enough for an average outage if you just keep them plugged in. You can also use them to power a fan during the day. They will not run small AC units. These are worth considering as an intermediate option for the more cash prepper. What you're looking for here is not a full off rid replacement, but something that can provide you with options for more than just

basic gadget power. With these big, small batteries, you can run a fan or fans, maybe not long enough for comfort, but in bursts throughout the day to get you through the hottest part of the day during a blackout, during what we call a wet bulb event, This would be the life saving health emergency that a basic solar setup

would be most useful in saving you from. For context in case people aren't up to date, a wet bulb event is a weather situation in which the temperature reaches a critical level above eighty eight degrees fahrenheit and does not drop below that point for an extended period of time. If people lack access to effective cooling during heating events

like this, they will die. We saw one of these hit a couple of years ago where I live in Portland, Oregon, which has been long famed for its mild temperatures and thus most homes lack central air. During a three day heat wave, temperatures rose to record highs and did not drop low enough at night to allow people any recovery time. More than one hundred of them died. This kind of thing is possible anywhere if you have central air standard where you live, the grid can always go down, as

we've seen happen in Texas over and over again. For someone with money, your best bet might be pairing a portable air conditioner like the Idea Duo, which ranges from five hundred to six hundred dollars on Amazon, with something like the Jackery SG two thousand plus, which with panels and a good sunlight, would allow you to run it during the day at least in a single room. As an aside, this is actually a case in which someone with a window unit is at more of an advantage

than someone with central air. You can connect your jaggery directly to the breaker, but without expansion batteries, it's not going to run a whole home long, so you'd want to unplug everything and turn off the lights, running your AC in short bursts, and maintaining discipline with your doors at windows, ideally putting up foil or at least cardboard

over the windows to maximize efficiency. If you're just being able to run a fan because you've get a smaller unit, you're probably looking at something like, you know, getting towels and rags well, but putting them over people's chests and faces and kind of getting directly under the fan for the periods of time that you can afford to run it again. We are not talking about the most ideal comfort situations here, we are talking survival. The limitations I

found for are generally twofold. One is that even with good sunlight, folding panels like the ones Jackerie and Jennifer's ship Me don't always hit their advertised wattage. This is because you've got to deal with a lot of other factors, the movement of the sun throughout the day, where shadows fall on your home or property, your access to the roof, how clean the panels are, and under normal use conditions,

it is surprisingly easy to get stuff on them. On a sunny spring day in Oregon, I found my two hundred watt Jackery panels tended to get one hundred and twenty two one hundred and fifty watts during the most optimal parts of the day. I was able to plug the Jackery panels into the Geniverse generator and vice versa, and I found that jackerres panels generally performed ten to

fifteen percent better during real life conditions. I looked it up and on paper, the genniverse has a solar cell efficiency or EFF of about twenty three point four percent. Jackery beats them by one percent with an the FF rating of twenty four point three. That is not enough of a difference to matter too much, although I should know that what I saw in real life use was a notable difference. You may experience something different with these panels,

with any panels that you get. I can't claim to have tested anything but the ones that they shipped me. The Jackery Explorer two hundred plus is capable of taking fourteen hundred bots of input max, which would be seven sets of panels, although from what the manual says, it can take up to six Solar Saga eighty panels to

their two hundred wide panels under normal conditions. You can expand all this with added Explorer two thousands running in tandem and up to twelve Solar Saga eighties on a single generator, but doing that requires some wonky shit with cables, and at that point we're talking about a system beyond what most people are likely to want or need. When it comes to durability, I suspect that both the Jackerie and Genniverse are probably close in functioning. Online reviews give

both systems good user reliability ratings. In real world conditions. I had the opportunity to do something that you never want to do in real life with the device you'd paid for, which was work one of these systems to death. It shows the genivers and the torture test I used basically involved keeping it outside, charging and providing power at a fairly low trickle for twelve days of intermittent rain

and wind in the Pacific Northwest late winter. We got about two inches of rain during this time, and that was enough to eventually kill the generator, but it took close to two weeks of downright irresponsible treatment. We are talking the kind of neglect you would not subject a product like this too without no other option. And subsequent tests with the Jaggery, I have been able to keep it operating outdoors in bad weather without damage through taking

minimal measures to shield the generator. The least I did was stick a plastic home depot crate lid above it literally set it down on top of the unit to stop water from just hitting the ports on the sides and back directly. The most elaborate protective set up outdoors was a simple tarp cover and making sure it was elevated a bit above the ground when it comes to

which of these systems would be best for you. The primary difference between the Giniverse and the Jackery is that the Giniverse is higher capacity twenty four hundred and nineteen watt hours as opposed to a little over twenty forty two for the Jackery. This means that without input, you can run a normal fridge off the Giniverse for about six hours, and goodsun you can recharge it fully in

eight hours with two Geniverse solar powered two panels. The Jackery system will recharge in a similar timeframe under optimal conditions and give you a bit less usable power. It has the benefit of being almost twenty pounds lighter and significantly friendlier in design. For reasons that elude explanation, the Geniverse lacks a telescoping handle or wheels to help you

maneuver it into or out of position. This sucks because it's heavy, and if it's not wired into your breaker and you're using this for an emergency, you might need to move it around so that you can have the panels in different positions to take advantage of the sun. This also makes the Giniverse less useful than the Jackery

in normal daily life. Tasks. I started this episode with a rather ridiculous story about my waterbed, but I've actually found quite a few tasks which having a weeelable battery capable of this kind of output is handy. Basically, any power tool that you are likely to own will run off of either of these systems, but only the Jaggery is friendly enough to want to move around outdoors to

take advantage of this fact. And this kind of gets us to the crux of a question some of you have been asking this whole episode, how practical are any of these solutions. My answer is complicated, but I think fair if you can't or aren't going to expend the energy to become competent with solar power to the extent that someone living off grid would generally want to be, these are exceptional solutions so long as you can afford them.

In both cases, you're looking at around three thousand dollars for a setup that could power anything in your home and would handle all necessary tasks for longer than the length of an average blackout. The Jacquerie and Jenniver's systems are also future capable. You can expand both with added batteries over time and add in more panel capacity up to a point that makes them quite attractive if you

can afford them. My personal recommend would be for the Jackery over the Genniverse for most people, for a couple of reasons. Please note that I received review units from both companies and money from neither, so I have no vested interest in picking one over the other. One reason that I chose the Jackery Explorer two thousand is that it is a bit cheaper nineteen hundred for the base system and four hundred and seventy nine for each set

of two hundred watt folding panels. Compare that to the Genniverse home Power two Pro, which starts at two two hundred and ninety nine dollars and thirty four hundred dollars for the generator with two two hundred watt panels. The Jackery is also meaningfully easier to use in recreational situations, so it is a system that the average person will get more use out of. You can take it camping easily, you can use it for overlanding, and you can have

it ready for an emergency. I will note that if you have a system like this, you will surprise yourself with how often it comes in a handy for simple tasks. What I like about both systems is again their future compatible.

You can start with the base system and then add a couple of panels, and as you say, they have more money, you can add an additional battery packs and panels to give you both more capacity and more input, with the goal of eventually storing a day or a couple of days of power and being able to run

your home minimally during extended emergencies. The shortcoming that you'll find with either system is that if you have a normal home, it will cost as much as a nice used car to have a setup that could run your house for extended periods of time, let alone indefinitely. A typical home AC unit can burn something like fourteen thousand kilowatt hours per day, and that's just half of what

an average home draws. Heating amounts to a comparable draw So while these systems can be expanded significantly with additional batteries, if you're dealing with an outage that extends past several days, you will encounter severe limitations. This brings me to the most impressive but least accessible piece of gear that I tested for these episodes. The Anchor Solix F thirty eight

hundred portable power station. This holds about three eight hundred and forty watt hours of electricity and can output six thousand watts if necessary. You can charge your electric car or run a welding rig off of this thing. It can be expanded with additional battery storage, and if you had thirty or forty grand to spend, you could wire this thing up to power your house for close to

a week without sunlight. The F thirty eight hundred itself costs four thousand dollars, and you can run two of them in tandem with twelve battery packs each to power your home for about two weeks for just the cost of at this point a rather nice car that is wildly out of reach for most people, but if you can afford it, the anchor is a really cool system. There's been a tremendous amount of thought put into everything, from how the device is constructed and laid out to

how you carry it. I particularly appreciate the fact that you can wheel it like a big suitcase or lay it on its side where it has additional pop out handles to enable you to carry it in multiple different ways. All of Anker's products feel premium, and the metal handles that I said pop out are like metal. They're very solid. Everything has a clean interface and what I would describe

as an exceedingly livable industrial design. If you happen to be one of the people who can consider putting down four thousand dollars for an emergency battery, the Solix F thirty eight hundred will see you through ninety nine percent of the power loss situations you are likely to encounter, and require minimal knowledge to set up and get working.

It is easy to attach to your home breaker and Anchor's instructions for doing so are simple to follow for folks who can afford the cost then, and that cost is not inconsiderable. It is a great mix of might save your life and will definitely come in handy. I should also note that the Jaggery system has a better pedigree than the Geniverse system in the industry, probably similar

to Anchor. They've got a long track record and are well regarded not as inexpensive solution, but as a reliable one with a good warranty and a lot of history to back them up. All of these systems are, in my experience, reliable and easy to use. All of them are and I have to hit on this a few times because it matters expensive. That presents a problem if you're someone who sees the value and these as potential emergency devices but will realistically never be able to throw

down three thousand dollars for them. It would be irresponsible of me to give you some specific technical advice because I lack that knowledge. But I have some experience here, and we're going to get to that after this next set of ads. We're back and we're talking about what you can do, at least a little bit of what

you can do. Again the furthest thing in the world from an expert here, but I wanted to at least provide some starting points from folks who are never going to be able to afford these more formal, easier to use, idiot proof kind of situations, because while I'm not an expert on this, I have lived off grit a bit, and I have known people who have done so in

a wide variety of weird situations. At one point, my partner operated a solar powered shack that they lived out of, with batteries so comparatively primitive that she had to regularly refill them with water. That kind of maintenance is going to be second nature to people who know they're shit with solar, and those people have a lot more options than the layman. Probably the most impressive and cash neutral setup I saw was in a place called East Jesus

in far southern California. This was It was a totally off grid power setup that kept around twelve to eighteen people alive year round and often intense temperatures, powering AC units and trailers in RVs, fridges, fans, lights at the entertainment equipment they used the wakes Now. Their setup was

all scavenged or bought cheap in auction. The batteries they used, which took up an entire shipping container sized space, were purchased cheap from a telecom company in the area which retired its deep cycle batteries once they hit eighty percent of their original functioning capacity or something like that. Panels

were likewise scavenged or bought cheap and used. Since they had a lot of space but little money, wiring a shitload of panels a varying efficiency together was a solution that they could afford, both in terms of the money that it cost and in terms of the space that was required. Most people lacked the technical knowledge to set something like this up. I sure do, and even more

of them lacked the space. But it is an example of the sort of solutions that people with little to no cash can cook up if they're clever and knowledgeable about the fundamental technology. It would be extremely irresponsible if I did not add here that solar setups are the sort of thing where it behooves you to be exceedingly fucking careful. The chief benefit of the system's goal zero anchor, Jenniverse, and Jacker make is that they are all as close

to idiot proof as they can be. Part of the cost comes from the fact that they use expensive but extremely stable lithium iron phosphate batteries. These have long life spans. Jackery rates THEIRS at ten years and a cycle life of up to two thousand cycles. They have a good standby time too. Jackery rates THEIRS at up to fifty percent charge after two years in storage. A lot of the cheaper or scavenged options you find are lithium polymer batteries.

These are rather infamous for igniting and burning down people's homes. There are solutions you can find online and if you're interested in cheaper homebrew solar setups out there, one place I suggests starting is diyssolarforum dot com. The people there will have suggestions for minimizing risk. Since LiPo is one of the most dangerous battery chemistry types out there, some

people build what are called battery bunkers. One form I've seen this tape is basically a cube of bricks around and below the batteries with a ceramic flat sheet above them. Some people will suggest lacing sandbags above the bunkers that if the battery goes into a thermal runway, it will melt the sandbag and pour sand into the battery to stop the fire. Again, I am not giving advice here, just providing you with an example of the kinds of concerns that you do have to think about when considering

building setups like this for your own. It is unfortunate. The most financially accessible way to do this is by taking the research into your own hands and relying on the experience of hobbyists and lifestyle explorers who have been there before. But disasters aren't fair, and either is life. Another exploratory option I'd suggest is googling questions like how to run small room ac off solar or how to run to twelve volt fridge indefinitely Comma solar, and then

add Reddit as a search term. You'll find threads of people in off grids, solar or overlanding subreddits who have explored these problems for themselves and their journeys can at least act as a basis for your own. I'd like to thank at the end of this as at Jack Reach Universe and anchor who sent products for me to review. It was incredibly nice of them all, and from an esthetic point of view, they all make great gear that

is a genuine pleasure to use. Gool Zero didn't send me anything, but I've paid for their stuff for years and I've never had anything fail in the field, so I figure I owe them a shout out here too, and it's going to do it for us. It could happen here for the day, so you know, check in tomorrow or you know Monday, depending on when you hear this. Whenever it drops and yeah, goodbye.