💰 Bluetti AC200L Will Pay Itself Off 💵 Grid Tie

[@Roll2Videos]

✨BLUETTI Official Website: 👉bit.ly/MyBoyBlues

[@AdamDeLayDIY]

That's a slick feature! It definitely opens up a lot more possibilities for people who want to get into solar, but don't want to mess with a full-blown house system.

[@markspencer9441]

This thing is a beast I ran my Keurig coffee maker and microwave oven at the same time by accident and it handled it perfectly without issues! I was able to run everything in my RV!!

[@dan32one44]

Nice 👍 good stuff..

[@twennywonn]

I use this to peak shift my aquarium, which idles at 70 watts but peaks to 560 watts when the heaters are running. But I’m using custom mode, this allows it to also function as a UPS, so if I lose power, the aquarium will still function just fine. If I used time control only and it was in off-peak, my aquarium would shut down.

[@Roll2Videos]

@@twennywonn I used custom mode, too 😊

[@ghostflight73]

Great vid. Actually got me thinking...in the summer, when not taking ac200 camping, I am going to set up these functions and have it run pool pump off battery during the day and recharge bluetti off grid power during cheap power times. Why not? Sits most of the time, may as well get used and save me some $$ off peak power rates. Thanks.

[@Roll2Videos]

Add some solar and save even more! 👍👍👍

[@mucarew]

Thanks for the great video! I do have a question though. The loads that you are running daily are you going through a transfer switch? TYIA

[@Roll2Videos]

@@mucarew Nope, I plugged the bluetti into the outlet and my loads into the bluetti. Configured my time settings.

[@grindychum]

Are you not using any solar input for this setup? Basically just recharging the unit during off peak Hrs. Payback is going to take 10+yrs. I have a 200Max with 2 B230 batteries- between the idle consumption and the shunt needing calibration (which requires 13hrs of grid charging) every 3 months my system will never pay for itself. But at least I will have power when the grid is down.

[@Roll2Videos]

In this video, I don't have solar hooked up. I do now. This new function will help just that much more. Adding to its awesomeness

[@godrulesme8619]

Great tutorial as always...thank you!!!

[@Roll2Videos]

You're very welcome 😁

[@jw3843]

I had no idea that it had that built in. Very nice.

[@Roll2Videos]

So far the AC200L has it.

[@4evermetalhead79]

Awesome. Thanks for the update. Much appreciated. 👍

[@Roll2Videos]

You're very welcome

[@sun-sea-solar]

I wonder if they'll do a firmware update for older models

[@Roll2Videos]

That would be great if they can.

[@markspencer9441]

Yes it can, mine already has..!!

[@johngrimley3523]

That's a great function, Can you control it remotely from another location?

[@Roll2Videos]

Yes! This has WiFi and Bluetooth. It's really cool to be able to remotely view everything from anywhere.

[@cgutowski471]

Great video! If the grid is down and battery drains completely, does the system come back on itself and power/charge when grid comes back?

[@Roll2Videos]

That is a very good question that I will be testing soon. Please sub to stay in the loop 😁👍

[@cgutowski471]

@@Roll2Videoshave been a subscriber since your first Growatt video figuring out the G/N bond stuff.

[@Roll2Videos]

@@cgutowski471 Awesome, Thank you very much 😁 The more subs I get the more it makes doing this worth it.

[@1lupus]

I thought Yetis were brown? LOL. I have the AC200L, and can't help chuckling at the American pronunciation. Great video by the way. I have a 5KW solar installation on my rooftop. The power company will only give me 5 cents a Kilowatt input credit, so during the daylight hours I run all my power hungry devices, pump the house full of heat or cool air depending on the season. Now I have the AC200L charging during the daytime and running some of my essentials at night. I have a folding solar panel that I can use in case of grid failure, so I may never recover the full cost of the unit, but I have a bit of a guarantee against blackouts.

[@Roll2Videos]

Lol, I'm Canadian but close enough. My girlfriend is on me about how I've been saying it wrong too. Ugh,

[@diySolarPowerFunWithRay]

Nice, I have really liked my AC 200 l so far. However I think the latest firmware update disabled the AC turbocharging mode.

[@Roll2Videos]

I'm still able to fast charge.

[@diySolarPowerFunWithRay]

@Roll2Videos how many watts are you able to AC charge at? I could AC charge at 2300 Watts before. With no help from solar. That's a pretty cool feature to.

[@Roll2Videos]

@@diySolarPowerFunWithRay I haven't tried the full 20A. I'm on a 15A breaker. 14A got me to 1500W. Under the charging mode do you have turbo turned on?

[@diySolarPowerFunWithRay]

@Roll2Videos I have turbo turned on and I also adjusted my amps to 19 and it worked great. I have a 20 amp breaker and 20 amp Outlets. I got the code from bluetti. I'll email it to you :). The 14 gauge charging cord handled it fine but i wouldn't want to go any higher on the amps.

[@Roll2Videos]

Thanks, I'd like to get the TT30 charging cable if I go any higher than 15A. Just to be safe.

[@markspencer9441]

Mine has paid for itself in 10 months…

[@Roll2Videos]

That's a fast turnaround. Nice job 👍 Any solar connected to it?

[@scarygary3569]

Totally dig it's abilities

[@Roll2Videos]

It is pretty amazing. Do you know of any other power station brand this size that can do this?

[@scarygary3569]

@@Roll2Videos so I can't honestly say I've heard of any having those features in a system of this size but with there being soooooo many out there now I can't keep up with what has what.I know some of the bigger newest systems do like hysolis Apollo but I'd think if they did they would really advertise it cause it's impressive.

[@Roll2Videos]

@@scarygary3569 Very true. I've only seen it in larger systems. This is nice it's more adorable.

[@petrag.4092]

Thank you! 🙏 🇺🇸🙏

[@Roll2Videos]

Welcome 🙏🇨🇦🙏

[@CanuckTech]

Great idea & feature in theory but once you factor in inverter & charging losses, I don't think it'll save you much at all especially since the unit can only store 2kwh of energy. There will be also be parasitic losses when the unit is plugged in but doing nothing during off peak hours.

[@Roll2Videos]

Great point, I've put a CT sensor on the AC input. It also takes into account peak and off-peak. I'll do one week measuring no bluetti and one with and see the differences. It will take a long time for payback but so far it's looking net positive.

[@CanuckTech]

@@Roll2Videos For sure it'll be a net positive, but at most you'll be able to shift maybe 1.3kwh off peak after losses. That 2400w inverter & any active circuits are probably drawing at least 20w @ idle, so about 480wh wasted a day. Then factor in conversion losses when charging/discharging the batt & that's another 250wh wasted. The savings from shifting 1.3kwh to off peak is maybe 25cents a day and you're stressing all capacitors in the inverter by running 24/7, electronics will go bad before the cells. There is no ROI doing this.

[@Roll2Videos]

@@CanuckTech Another good point. But also it's a standby power supply. LiFePO4 doesn't like to sit at 100% like all other UPS power stations do. This will let the batteries flex. Granted I agree ROI may not be worth it but at least someone is not buying it and it gets used a few times a year.

[@markspencer9441]

Mine was able to take me off grid…!

[@junkerzn7312]

Gonna be too many power conversions to really save much money by load-shifting. Power stations aren't really known for efficiency. You are talking 85% on the AC front-end, 95% battery turn-around (assuming 0.2C charge rate), and 85% for the back-end AC. (0.85 * 0.95 * 0.85) = 69% efficiency when off-UPS during load-shifting. Plus the inverter standby will eat 10-15W or so, 24x7. That's my bet for what you will get and it will more or less destroy any value. The only real savings comes from actually hooking solar panels up to the thing. That can be substantial, but again... power stations are not known for end-to-end efficiency. And they also tend to be severely limited on the solar input. This AC200L has a decent solar input voltage range (12-145VDC), but can only take 1200W. The MPPT inputs for power stations are usually pretty bad (85% to 95% efficient instead of the 98% you get from a real charge controller). The UPS switch time is also 20ms, which is a bit on the long side. It really needs to be a half-cycle (8-10ms) to guarantee seamless switching. 16ms is barely livable. 20ms is a bit too long. Anyone trying to load-shift seriously, with enough solar and battery to bridge 24 hours (with sunny weather), or at least be sufficient to get you to midnight, would probably want to go with a discrete solution rather than a power station solution. The discrete solution will be a whole lot more efficient.

[@Roll2Videos]

Ok, I hear your analogy and it is a good one. How about the characteristics of LifePO4 and the UPS function? LiFePO4 chemistry does not like to be held at 100% high voltage. With these settings, you can set the upper and lower SOC. Would you agree this will increase the overall life span of said battery?

[@junkerzn7312]

@@Roll2Videos Not sure what you mean by "100% high voltage". But generally speaking, LiFepO4 works very well in UPS style applications. Lets take a 4s (12V) architecture as an example (though generally speaking any new system should be using 48V, not 12V). The basic charging algorithm is to charge the battery to 3.55V/cell (14.2V), hold it there for 1-2 hours to give the BMS time to balance the cells, and then let it drop to its float voltage of 3.35V/cell to 3.375V/cell (13.4V to 13.5V). At the float voltage the battery will more or less maintain its 100% SOC until drawn down lower than that. Notice that the float voltage for a LFP battery is significantly below the bulk target voltage during charging. This alone massively reduces any stress on the battery, even though it is still at 100% SOC. -- Ok, now to answer the question. In a UPS style application, the battery will wind up being held at the float voltage more or less indefinitely. Does this hurt the battery? Answer: A little, but not much and you probably won't notice the difference in life-span. The cells will still outlast the other electronics in the UPS, probably by a lot. A standard charge controller can maintain a battery for UPS applications just fine. It is recommended that you set the float to the lower-end of the float range... 3.35V/cell (13.4V for example) as the float. While not required, it is also a good idea to charge to full once every few months to give the BMS time to catch up on balancing-out any imbalances that develop. You generally do not want to float at a lower voltage than 3.35V/cell because floating at a lower voltage can potentially cause the pack to discharge all the way down to 30% without you even noticing, which defeats the point of using it as a UPS. -- What is the absolute best algorithm for a UPS? It would be to charge to 100%, hold for 1-2 hours, drop it to around 95% SOC with a load, and then disconnect the battery. Rinse and repeat every 3 months or so. Vampire off the mains to keep the inverter on standby and to keep a capacitor charged to drive the transfer relay. Nobody does this, though. There is usually no point. You might save a hundred or two hundred cycles equivalent worth of wear by doing that, out of 3000+ cycles. So it isn't usually worth doing. -Matt

[@Roll2Videos]

@@junkerzn7312 LiFePO4 is not like lead acid. It's not good for them to be held at the top-end voltage. These power stations use 51.2V nominal voltage which means a fully charged power station is 58.2V. If you hold the battery at 58.2V (100%) all the time it will degrade the battery. Every spec sheet I've looked at says store at 40%-60% if you are storing the station at 100% (the basic function of a UPS) it is bad. If I was running a basic UPS that holds the battery at 100% I would use lead acid batteries.

[@junkerzn7312]

@@Roll2Videos (1) You didn't read what I wrote carefully enough. (2) A fully charged power station is NOT a voltage, its a state of charge and it is held even when the voltage drops, up to a certain point. Fully charging a 16s (51.2V nominal) LiFePO4 power station to 100% only requires charging it to roughly 3.45V/cell, which would be 55.2V. At least if it isn't too cold. Most charge controllers (properly) charge it to 3.55V/cell (56.8V), and then drop to a float voltage of 3.35V-3.375V/cell (53.6V to 54.0V). A 16s LiFePO4 battery will remain fully charged when held at a float of 53.6V. A UPS using a 16s LiFePO4 pack will generally use that for the float voltage. I don't know what you've read, but anyone with experience with LiFePO4 (which I have), will tell you the same thing. You can use LiFePO4 for UPS applications just fine. They work far better than lead-acid.

[@Roll2Videos]

@@junkerzn7312 I disagree with your presumption of float

[@mannyfragoza9652]

Interesting way to save a few bucks.

[@Roll2Videos]

Granted it would take a long time for the payback, Still a great idea.

[@mannyfragoza9652]

@@Roll2Videos compared to some whole home solar system i think its about 20 years to pay for itself. Yikes no thanks ill stick with my minimal/micro solar system. Now if i can only stop my compulsion to but Solar stuff. Its like getting a Tattoo, you get one you have to have more.

[@Roll2Videos]

@@mannyfragoza9652 If solar was applied payback would be faster. Another good thing is it's a UPS so if the power goes out the loads will still be powered. 👍

[@mannyfragoza9652]

@@Roll2Videos 👍👍

[@felaxchow207]

Definitely an interesting feature having the ability of peak shaving/load shifting. Unfortunately for me, my utility rates are fixed and not time of use (TOU). Adding solar to it will help offset the super peak rates and running on batteries for those shoulder periods. Way less hassle having to deal with the utility company with net metering agreements. I'm glad that I was able to get on a solar net metering agreement over 5 years ago for any excess export, I get kWh for kWh till the end of the calendar year then they credit me the rest I don't use at wholesale rates. I dove down the rabbit hole about a year ago and installed whole house battery backup system knowing I'll never break even on the cost I put into it. Just the fact that I can "trip" over the utility extension cord and go in offline mode for about 2 days giving me plenty of time to figure out a way to sync my grid tied array into the mix to recharge the batteries. The peace of mind is priceless in my opinion.

[@Roll2Videos]

That sounds comfortable. When I move out to a more rural area hopefully soon I will be going down the same road buddy. I'm excited 😁