Solar Generator for the Home: Which Size Keeps Your House Running
A solar generator is a battery, an inverter and solar charging in one box, with no fuel, fumes or noise. For a household it does two jobs: it carries the fridge, furnace blower, router and lights through an outage, and it soaks up panel power on ordinary days so you use less grid electricity. A household solar generator can be a wheeled portable unit you also take camping, or a wall-mounted battery and inverter pair that stays put.
The collection holds 186 products from Anker, Bluetti, Mango Power, EG4, BigBattery and Victron. Portable stations start at from $899 for a 2,073.6Wh Bluetti; complete wall-mounted systems with 14 to 16kWh of storage run to about $7,100.
How to choose a home solar generator
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Continuous output in watts. This decides what starts. A well pump, central AC or electric range needs 240V and several kilowatts, which is why the Anker SOLIX F3800 + PS400 Panel is rated at 6,000W. A fridge, lights and electronics are fine on the 2,600W Bluetti Elite 200 V2, which also has a 3,900W lifting mode for kettles and hair dryers.
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Stored energy in watt-hours. A typical fridge uses 1 to 1.5kWh a day. The Mango Power E 7kWh Home Backup bundle pairs the station with one expansion battery for 7.06kWh, enough for a multi-day outage with careful use. The F3800 bundles come in 3,840Wh and 7,680Wh versions.
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Solar input. The F3800 accepts up to 2,400W of panels, so a 400W kit panel is a starting point, not a ceiling. The Elite 200 V2 reaches 80% from the wall in about 1.1 hours, useful when a storm is forecast.
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Portable or installed. If you never need to move it, a wall system like the NEXUS 14.3kWh Battery + EG4 6000XP Inverter gives 6,000W split-phase output and 8,000W of solar input for from $4,544, and it scales to 214.5kWh of storage.
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Expansion path. The Elite 200 V2 accepts B80, B230 or B300 batteries; the Mango Power E takes an expansion pack; the F3800 stacks extra batteries.
Popular picks in this collection
| Product |
Key numbers |
Best for |
Price from |
| Bluetti Elite 200 V2 |
2,600W, 2,073.6Wh, 53.4 lb |
Apartment or small-home essentials |
$899 |
| Mango Power E 3.5kWh + 2 x 200W Panels |
3,000W, 3.5kWh, 400W solar |
First solar generator with panels included |
$1,899 |
| Anker SOLIX F3800 + PS400 |
6,000W, 3,840Wh, 2,400W solar input |
240V loads such as a well pump |
$2,600 |
| NEXUS 14.3kWh + EG4 6000XP |
6,000W, 14.3kWh, 8,000W PV input |
Installed whole-home backup |
$4,544 |
Setup and usage tips
- List the circuits you actually need in an outage and run them through the Solar Kit Calculator with your ZIP code. It returns battery, inverter and panel sizes rather than a guess.
- Check the fridge and freezer start-up surge. Compressors briefly pull several times their running watts, which is why the surge and lifting ratings on these units matter more than the sticker output.
- Keep the station between 20% and 80% when it sits in storage, and top it up every couple of months. LiFePO4 cells in the Elite 200 V2 and Mango Power E tolerate this well.
- Put panels where you can reach them in winter. A solar power generator that charges from a snow-covered roof array is just a battery.
- For a wall-mounted system, budget for an electrician and a transfer switch or sub-panel; the NEXUS and EG4 kits are indoor installations, not plug-and-play.
Frequently asked questions
How long will a solar generator run my fridge? A 2,073.6Wh Elite 200 V2 runs a modern fridge for roughly a day and a half without sun; the 7.06kWh Mango bundle stretches that to several days, and daily solar charging extends both.
Can solar generators run a whole house? Portable units cover selected circuits. For everything at once, the installed systems here deliver 6,000W of 120/240V output from 14 to 16kWh of storage, and the EG4 ESS pairs a 16kWh battery with a 16kW hybrid inverter.
Is a solar energy generator quiet enough for indoor use? Yes. There is no engine, so the portable stations sit in a hallway or garage with only a fan running under heavy load.
Everything ships free to the mainland US from our brand partner warehouses, usually within a few business days, with 30-day returns. If you are not sure whether a portable or installed system fits your home, call and we will walk through your panel and loads with you.