So my friend, Jacom, has installed 23 kilowatts worth of solar on his roof which generates an insane 120 kilowatt hours worth of energy every single day. For reference, the average home in the USA uses only 30.
Understanding Excess Solar Energy Usage
Average home only uses 30? Yeah. Good. I don’t know where all mine’s going. During the day he has so much excess power, but at night when the sun turns off he ain’t got nothing. If only there was a way to capture that excess energy during the day and use it at night when the sun is gone.
Introducing the Anker Solx X1 Battery Power Wall System
Anchor has a brand new stackable battery power wall system called the Anchor Solex X1. It’s an extreme energy performance storage system. And if you ignore the snowblower strapped to the ceiling, you can see some perfectly good wall space for us to mount them today.
Components of the Solex X1 Power Wall
A Solex X1 power wall is made up of two parts. A power module that sits on top that can output 6 kilowatts of power, and then the modular battery module sitting beneath it. Each battery module adds 5 kilowatt hours worth of backup capacity to the house.
Advantages of Storing Solar Energy with Batteries
With solar energy being the cheapest energy source in the world, it just makes sense to add batteries to hold that sunlight through the night. For Jacob’s house, we’re using two stacks, giving us a total of 12 kilowatts of power and 20 kilowatt hours worth of capacity.
Installation and Mounting Options for Battery Stacks
More than enough to get him through the dark winter nights and effectively making his house an off-grid oasis. Each stack of batteries can either be floor mounted or wall mounted, and we chose to mount them to the wall. So each of these battery modules is 5 kilowatt hours, and we can stack up to 3 tall.
Detailed Overview of Battery Modules and Their Function
This is the brains of the whole operation, and it can output about 6 kilowatts worth of juice. We will have two stacks of batteries for a total of 12 kilowatts of power, each stack having two modules, which is about 20 kilowatt hours. Each of the batteries have these little feet on top. And these feet, combined with the French cleats, are going to sit right here on this rack, with the French cleats falling down into these grooves.
How to Mount the Anker Solix X1 Battery System
And they look pretty awesome. Sitting at just 5.9 inches thick, they can mount very flush with the wall, and they have a pretty cool light bar that illuminates when someone walks by. Getting them mounted to the wall was actually pretty easy. And now let’s get the whole house plugged into the battery banks.
Battery Backup Capabilities and Temperature Ranges
- The nice thing about the Jankersoul XX1 is that it doesn’t require a specialized technician.
- Any certified electrician familiar with battery storage can knock this out in about a day.
- These batteries provide 100% power from negative 4 degrees all the way to 131 degrees.
- To be honest, if you live outside those temperature ranges, you should probably consider moving anyway.
- The hardest part of this whole operation is going to be at the main control panel.
- Since this is the whole home backup instead of a partial backup, we have to put the Jankersoul XX1 panel in between the utility meter and the regular home panel.
Control Panel Setup and Microgrid Functionality
So that if the power ever does go out, the SoulXX1 can initiate its backup abilities in less than 20 milliseconds. This panel also brings up to 6 battery stacks together and allows them to charge off the solar panels, turning Jacob’s house into the microgrid that doesn’t need civilization anymore.
Energy Optimization and Future Expansion Capabilities
It’s also smart enough to preemptively charge up to 100% when there’s a storm coming, and we can talk more about that later. Anker’s energy optimizer inside of the power modules also allows old batteries and new batteries to be used together inside the stacks so you can expand your system whenever you might need to. All the way up to 36 kilowatts of power and 180 kilowatt hours of capacity.
Durability, Warranty, and App Monitoring
And since each of the batteries have a 10-year warranty, there’s plenty of time to expand in the future if you need to. The whole stack is IP65 and can withstand rain and dust, but I’m not going to be the one to test that. Walking up to the batteries. They just both turned on just barely because I knew I was walking towards them. So the battery is charging right now 96% and the home is using 1.3 kilowatts.
Using the Anker Solix X1 App to Monitor Energy Usage
Here in the Anker Solic X1 app we can see how much solar is being generated as well as how much power is going into the battery. And it keeps track with some pretty interesting graphs. We have our total power generation, how much power the home is using, our discharge capacity, as well as our net power consumption.
Performance Metrics and Solar Energy Efficiency
And if you look at the month of like how much energy Jacob’s system is generating, 1,741 kilowatt hours, which is some ridiculously massive numbers. That’s also with a few rainy and cloudy days and we’re only halfway through the month. But having that many solar panels attached to this battery system just shows how powerful it can become.
Off Grid Capability and Power Consumption
If you look right here it says on grid and we have a white light illuminating from underneath the display. Okay, Jacob’s going to take us off grid by disconnecting the house from the utility. And now there’s a blue light underneath. Super interesting. It says we are off grid. The home is using about 2 kilowatts and the battery is going to power the house for about 10 hours.
Exploring Different Energy Modes of the Anker Solix X1
The Anker Solic X1 has three different energy modes. There’s self-powered mode, which maximizes green energy use. There’s time of use mode, which helps customers charge their batteries while electricity prices are low or if they don’t have solar. And the new mode called NEM 3.0, which allows people with the Solix X1 to sell electricity as fast as possible while the price is high.
NM30 Mode: Selling Electricity During High Price Periods
Currently only available in California, but it basically turns the Anker Solix X1 into an employee. We set up the shop light here because Anker says that when we switch to off grid mode or like in an emergency situation, it takes less than 20 milliseconds to switch. So we’ll see if this shop light flickers when we go to off grid.
Charging an Electric Vehicle with the Battery Backup
| Action | Result |
|---|---|
| Jacob, hit the button. | The light stayed on. |
| Every single plug and every single light, every single appliance in this whole house is currently attached to these batteries. | The blue lights indicate that we are completely off grid. |
| Let’s see what happens when I plug in my truck though. | Now all the juice from the well-mounted battery is flowing over to my truck pulling 11 kilowatts. |
| It’ll be nice that Jacob can still charge an electric vehicle while the grid is down. |
Comparing Battery Backup Systems: Anker vs. Gas Generators
If you listen really closely you can hear a slight hum as the batteries are charging and discharging, but in the grand scheme of things it is basically non-existent, especially when you consider other home backups like a gas power generator, which would be infinitely louder.
Final Thoughts on the Anker Solix X1 Battery System
Alright so Jacob, now that you’ve been using it for about 3 weeks, what are your thoughts on the system? So initially I was a little reluctant to let it cycle every day just to wear them out. Coming with a 10-year warranty means I’ve still got another 3629 days left. Of like full cycles, right?
Yeah, that’s with cycling every day. That’s wild. Not too worried about that, great to offset a little bit of power and then have plenty of juice in any kind of power goes out, emergency situation, turn a few things off and I can be totally off grid. Yeah, so Jacob’s setup is a little bit over the top, but if you’re looking for a battery backup solution for your home, I’ll leave a link down in the description for the Anchor.
