When it comes to storing electricity for off-grid uses, portable power stations are key. But for larger devices that require more power than a typical USB device, larger capacity batteries and more powerful inverters open the door to serious utility. And the AlphaESS Portable Power Station we tested has an extra serving of power and capacity for bigger tasks. It also comes with an exclusive discount code that you’ll find below.
What’s better than plenty of off-grid power? Saving $150 on that off-grid power!
We’ve tested several types of portable power stations before, but most are smaller units designed for smaller tasks.
USB charging is great, don’t get me wrong.
But if you want to do more than keep your camera charged or your drone battery topped up, you’ll need one of these big boys. And when the watt hours figure hits the quadruple digits, you know you’ve entered big battery territory.
The AlphaESS Portable Power Station offers 1,036 Wh of capacity and pairs it with a 1,000W Sine Wave inverter. That allows you to power up both your DC and your AC devices for extended periods of time.
Unboxing the unit reveals the usual suspects. You’ll find your wall charger on top, allowing you to recharge the unit from a standard 110V AC wall outlet.
There are also accessory cables like a USB-C to USB-C cable and a 12V accessory outlet plug that you can use to recharge the unit from your car’s 12V outlet.
A word to the wise: Unless you have an electric car, don’t try to charge the entire thing from your car’s outlet without the car running, as you could end up nearly draining your car battery. This is a seriously big power station.
In fact, the unit itself is fairly hefty, too. It weighs 25 lb. (11.3 kg), so that carry handle is a nice addition. It’s 13″ across, so it’s not a tiny fellow either.
When it comes to ports, you’ve got a pile of them to choose from.
Of course, you’re going to find your typical USB ports for DC devices. There are a pair of USB A ports and second pair of USB C ports, including a PD100W port to charge larger devices like powerful laptops as quickly as the PD standard will allow – an impressive 100W.
And you’ve also got a pair of 10W wireless charger pads on top of the device too, which are convenient for tossing a phone or tablet (or both) to get a quick wireless charge without taking up a precious USB port.
But the real star of the show are the 110V AC ports.
Those are powered by the 1,000W Sine Wave inverter, meaning you can pull some serious power out of them.
Anyone who follows my writing will know that I’m pretty big into riding two-wheeled electric vehicles. I spend a significant amount of time riding outdoors, and often I’m limited only by the amount of charge in my batteries.
If there’s one thing that nature is known for, it’s not providing readily accessible 110V outlets.
On longer trips, it’s nice to bring along a power station. I can often leave it in a vehicle or other temporary base, returning to charge up during lunch or while escaping the sun for a while.
I tested out the AlphaESS Portable Power Station on a few of my different rides. You might have seen my recent review of the fun little JackRabbit micro e-bike.
Its low-power charger barely moved the needle on the AlphaESS; it could have recharged that little e-bike several times over and barely needed to activate its internal cooling fan.
So to step things up a notch, I had to roll out my massive Wolf King GT Pro electric scooter that I’m currently reviewing (there’s a little sneak peak of what’s to come).
This behemoth of an electric scooter offers several thousand watts of power and a massive battery. It even has two charge ports to dump more energy into that massive battery quickly. That made it perfect for a stress test of the AlphaESS.
With both powerful chargers plugged into the power station and the JackRabbit’s smaller charger still chugging away, I maxed out the three AC outlets without any protest from the power station.
The AlphaESS definitely kicked on its cooling fans, but it didn’t struggle to continue charging the two scooters via three chargers until it finally ran out of juice itself.
In a perfect world I’d have a folding solar panel to go with it so it could keep charging itself from the sun while it powers my devices. It doesn’t come with one, but a quick search on Amazon shows a few compatible options. And you can always use an adapter to plug in just about any other solar panel you have laying around.
There are even some other nice features, like the large LED light panel on back with multiple brightness settings.
It’s great as a work light or camp light if you’re caught out after dark. And with a battery this big, it would last several nights in a row.
The AlphaESS is normally priced at $999, which is on par with most power stations at roughly $1/wh. But you can use the coupon code YELECTREK on Amazon here to take 15% off, dropping the price to just $850. The deal is only good until March 27 though, so don’t wait too long!
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