EcoFlow DELTA 2 vs EcoFlow DELTA Pro 3

“I got my delta 2/EB set almost two years ago and then upgraded my generator to a dual fuel inverter champion model when they went on sale. I also got 4 used 360w residential panels ($100/panel from FB marketplace) later that year. My goal was to have all my power tool batteries and ego lawn equipment running off solar. It’s over paneled for the 500w the D2 can accept but it works well. It was nice to play around with the solar but the whole setup really showed its value when we had a massive storm last July. My house was without power for 5.5 days and there were neighborhoods around us that went over a week without power. With the delta 2/EB/solar setup I could run my generator for 2 hours to recharge the system to full (also ran an extension cord to my neighbors to let them run their fridge and freezer). The battery bank would run my 2 fridges, a chest freezer, fiber gateway/mesh router, and charge my power tool batteries for the whole day until around 9 pm we’d run out of power. Run the generator again for another 2 hours and top everything off for the night. I never had to leave my generator running unattended and we saved so much fuel by not having it running constantly. Being able to lock the generator in the garage gave me piece of mind that it wouldn’t get stolen without a lot of work. Having 2 ryobi battery powered fans we could run all day and a working ice maker made life without AC actually pretty comfortable. And not being reliant on the overloaded cell towers for internet/communication meant life was pretty easy compared to our neighbors. It was lucky the fiber lines didn’t get take out by the storm but most of my neighbors had no idea the network was still up. IMO using the medium sized solar generators as a piece of a hybrid system (inverter propane/gas generator, solar panels, solar generator) is an overlooked option. You can use a smaller more efficient ICE generator to charge your batteries as needed, save a ton of fuel, run in silent mode for 80% of the day, and have constant power.”

“Hi. I wanted to jump in just to give you a head’s up on your plans. Before you rush into any buying, it’s important to consider what you need at minimum. Right now, you probably will be disappointed with your purchase. Please note that I am making up all these numbers as best I can for a reasonable example. You need to get a little deeper into this before you can be sure of what you need. **Step1, Power Output:** Decide what things you want to power in an emergency and figure out how much power that is, at maximum. You want to power a refrigerator which is a huge power drain. A typical side-by-side fridge is going to use 800-1000 watts. There should be a metal plate inside the fridge that will have the information. It might list the voltage and amps instead of Watts, in which cast you multiply 115v (assuming) by the number of amps to get the max Watts. Now do that with all the other things you want to power. It’s honestly good to have a spreadsheet to keep track. You will use that maximum number against what your battery pack says is the maximum. The Delta Pro 3 says it handles up to 4000w, so that sounds great, but look into that more and makes sure “up to” means with the actual device you are getting and not only by adding extra equipment. **Step 2, Capacity:** OK, now you have to figure out if you have enough storage capacity (battery power). Again, from the spreadsheet, let’s say you measured 1000W. That means that for a full day’s use, you need 24hours X 1000W = 24,000 Wh, or 24 kWh! The good news is that your fridge doesn’t run 24 hours a day. They cycle on and off. If you have a kill-a-watt (and if you don’t, honestly you should get one), connect it to your fridge and let it go for 2 or 3 days to compute an average. Keep in mind that with no AC on in your house your fridge will run harder, so add 20% or so to that number for safety’s sake. I’ll go out on a limb ad say you’ll end with an average of 150-175w/hour, or so somewhere between 3.6-4.2 kWh per day. Now, you might see the problem. The bank you want is “only” 4kWh. That’s a lot for a portable device, but not very much if you want to run a fridge. Realistically, it will run only a fridge for less than 2 days before it’s out of power unless you have a way to recharge (see next step 3). You will likely want to run it for 2 hours and turn it off completely to save power. Depending on the quality and how often you open it that might extend things, but you see what you have here. A 4kWh system is not what you are looking for, unless you can recharge it every day. **Step 3, Generation power:** 300W worth of solar panels is not a lot at all. And those 3 panels will probably only generate around 200W on a good day, and only maybe 10 hours a day in the summer if there are no clouds. That means you can probably get 2 kWh extra every day, if you are lucky. That’s about half of what you need for just your fridge. You definitely need to shore up that 300W worth of solar panels. You can litera”