Bluetti's new AC500 and EP900: More power in an emergency

We met up with Bluetti representative Yolanda to walk us through their impressive CES 2023 booth and show off some of the company's coolest new products — namely the AC500 and EP900.

AppleInsider: We're here in Las Vegas for the annual CES event at the official Bluetti booth where you're going to give us a booth tour of all of the brand's latest offerings! Where do we start?

Bluetti: Yes! Definitely! This here is our newest product (AC500), we just launched this on Indiegogo and we have had huge success with the campaign. Lots of people want to see it and anyone at CES can come to our booth and preview what they have bought.

AppleInsider: That is so cool, so let's take a closer look. What are all these outputs across here?

Bluetti: So just like our older product, we have dual DC outputs here, USB outputs, and then several AC outputs. Up top is our touch screen.

Compared to our EP500, we have added more AC outputs. We have three regular 20 amp AC ports, two 30 amp ports, and a 50 amp port.

These (the standard 20 amp AC ports) are for smaller devices like portable refrigerators and the others can be used for their RVs, electric cars, and things like that.

AppleInsider: That's awesome. So two DC car outputs then these are two 100W USB-C ports. These are fast, very fast.

There are also four USB-A ports, six USBs in total. That's a lot of output ports!

Tell me, these appear to be stacked together, what's going on here? Is this increasing the power of the whole setup?

Bluetti: Yes, that's correct. We have two B300S connected together. Each battery gives you an extra 3072Wh capacity so these two together give you 6000Wh.

That's a lot already but if people need more each AC500 can stack up to six B300S batteries.

AppleInsider: So in total, so I don't have to do all the math, what does that add up to if you max out the system?

Bluetti: It's close to 20,000Wh of output. Around 18,000.

AppleInsider: Wow, 18,000Wh is a lot of juice.

Bluetti: Yes, it's insane. What you can also do is get two AC500s and connect them in split-phase mode and it will give you 10,000-watt output.

AppleInsider: Wow. So you also have solar inputs?

Bluetti: Correct, this system accepts up to 3,000 watts for solar input but you can use solar and DC input at the same time for faster charging.

People will definitely love it.

AppleInsider: Aweome! So these are currently available on Indiegogo. You can head there and back them now to receive your own AC500, 500Wh capacity, this is cool.

We have more to check out though, so let's head over to the next product!

Bluetti: Absolutely, let's go!

AppleInsider: We're here still at the booth and these products look particularly exciting to me. These are whole-home battery backups?

I currently live in a more rural area and we have blackouts and brownouts quite often so tell me what we're looking at here.

Bluetti: For sure.

As you can see these are the Bluetti EP900 and this inverter has a 9,000W output. The big difference between this and the AC500 is this is for grid-tie only. Not for off-grid.

This is the product we designed for the American market where we know the grid isn't always stable and there have been plenty of blackouts. The Bay Area right now has crazy flooding from the pouring rain so this could be helpful.

The way this works is people install them at their house, either in the garage or outside. Then each inverter can stack up to four batteries and each battery gives you an additional 5,000Wh.

That's 5,000Wh compared to 3,000Wh on the B300S connected to the AC500.

AppleInsider: That gives you 20,000Wh in battery power, enough to power your whole home! So your power goes out, and this keeps you online.

Bluetti: Yes, for a couple of days.

So let me tell you how this works. You can see we have our sub-panel and our main panel. You connect your rooftop solar panel to the main panel and you break down your devices into your essential load and non-essential load at the sub-panel.

So at your house, what would you want to be sure it doesn't lose power?

AppleInsider: I mean, my fridge!

Bluetti: Yes, totally. Your refrigerator. You don't want to go back to your house and find out all your food is spoiled.

AppleInsider: For sure! We're in Vegas right now. If my power goes out I'm in trouble — big trouble.

Bluetti: Yes, so if you had a power outage, this system will kick on a couple miliseconds and it will take care of your fridge. You'll when you get home there is no power for lights, outlets, but the fridge is working.

AppleInsider: So cool! So anything you've deemed non-essential like gadgets, certain lights, will all be out by anything essential — like the fridge — will be powered.

Of course it depends on what you have connected, but how long could this potentially power your home? Your typical home.

Bluetti: Sure, it depends on how many devices are on the essential load but if you had the air conditioner and fridge and used one inverter with two batteries you could run it for a couple weeks.

AppleInsider: That's incredible. If you're living in an area with constant flooding or other storms that have been wiping out power, these are essential.

I've personaly been looking at a whole-home battery backup for a while and this is very cool.

Bluetti: Yes, very much. Beside the UPS mode that we talked about, they can also help with lowering your electric bills.

In California — not sure if it is the case in other states — but there are times of the day when the grid is under heavy load so the electric rate is increased.

At peak times, you'll have to pay more to use electricity while at 1AM when the load is smaller, rates go down.

What you can do is set a timer on the system so the battery will charge from the grid overnight when it is cheaper and then you can use the stored power in the battery at peak rates to save money.

AppleInsider: I love that. You can run your AC during peak usage times with electricity you harvested in the middle of the night.

Bluetti: Correct! Also, in some locations, if you gather a bunch of energy from your solar panel and don't use it all, you can sell it back to the power company and make money.

AppleInsider: So it could basically pay for itself!

Bluetti: Yes! Another benefit of getting this system.

AppleInsider: Anything else you'd like to mention?

Bluetti: Thank you for stopping by! You can learn more about the Bluetti EP900 on our website and check out the AC500 on Indiegogo.