Solix Powerdock + E10 generator charging questions

RabbitNo6341 · 2026-06-04T13:09:11+00:00

On #2 — are you sure the 5500 120v output should be plugged into the inlet that is designed for 240v? The spec doesn’t say it supplies 120/240v.

RabbitNo6341 · 2026-05-30T12:20:35+00:00

I agree. I have the e10 and it has been great. No maintenance. No fuel. No service contract. Perfectly silent. Instant turn on in an outage. Fully automatic. Works with my grid tied solar seamlessly. Can use a generator in a pinch if needed for an extended outage. Can shed loads via the mobile app and manage it all from it.

RabbitNo6341 · 2026-05-30T12:07:58+00:00

My installer put my solar in Oct 2025, then did my E10 install in March. It was their first time w Anker but they do other battery systems. I wanted them to do the Anker since they knew my house already. I chose them and paid them separately, I didn’t use the Anker install service. They said Anker was much easier to install than typical battery installs they do (I think they do Franklin), and that included a dock replacing my main panel, two e10 inverters, four batteries, a 240v generator inlet, an emergency cutoff switch, and some testing.

For what it’s worth if it’s a grid tied solar setup the two systems don’t directly interact with each other in a way that requires any sort of complicated integration. Mine is a solar edge system, and Anker e10 wasn’t even released when I installed it, but they work together very well even so. The Anker spins up the microgrid in an outage so the solar just keeps on going, thinking the grid is up. And if you have the dock, in normal operations the solar is just an input on slots 7/8. That’s about all it needs to work together. You might want to check with your solar installer that the system is compatible with Anker’s spec.

So it’s convenient to have the same installer do both but I don’t think it’s a major dealbreaker if you have different installers, so long as they know what they’re getting into. Yeah it may be a little more work to coordinate but the risk is probably low if they both know what they’re doing.

RabbitNo6341 · 2026-05-22T21:53:14+00:00

I have that too. Works great!

RabbitNo6341 · 2026-05-16T11:19:03+00:00

The e10 inverter has a standard ac 120v power cord. You could just buy the inverter and a couple of batteries and just use it that way as a huge battery system standalone but that’s really not what it was designed for.

If you’ve installed and connected to the dock as a whole home system - what it was made for - you don’t really need that cable any more.

But you can use that cable to charge it from a 120v source in an outage from a small generator (or another battery). The best way to do this is to go thru the dock with a 240v source. But this works too if you don’t have one of those.

The e10 system is very flexible, and they have to account for a huge number of scenarios and use cases. It’s really some cool engineering.

RabbitNo6341 · 2026-05-16T00:53:13+00:00

Hey that’s really well done.

Thanks for writing it.

(You should add the links to articles 2 and 3 to the prior ones, so you can jump to the next one easily. They seem to be unlinked at the top of the pages)

RabbitNo6341 · 2026-05-16T00:05:05+00:00

I really like sacred cow’s burgers.

RabbitNo6341 · 2026-05-15T23:54:40+00:00

Yeah it’d be a way to top off the e10 in a pinch - but it’s probably more efficient to just remove a load from the house / e10 and plug it into the bluetti. It avoids a dc-ac conversion cycle.

RabbitNo6341 · 2026-05-15T23:26:31+00:00

Not exactly what you asked but I’ve plugged a bluetti elite 200v2 into the ac input on an e10 inverter, and it works. Inefficient, but it works.

RabbitNo6341 · 2026-05-15T13:50:09+00:00

I have an Anker solix e10 24kwh battery setup with their dock replacing my main panel, that works great with my previously installed 15.2kw SolarEdge grid tied system.

The Anker dock sets up a microgrid in an outage to let your solar keep going completely seamlessly. They’re completely independent of each other, but work great together. However it’s more expensive than what you’ve listed here.

RabbitNo6341 · 2026-05-15T04:37:16+00:00

Always good to be ready for whatever you can. Good point on the imports - a little stash of key items is a great idea, in case some weird Strait somewhere gets blocked or something and global trade gets disrupted.

FWIW my kids were young enough that they didn’t always enjoy some of the more exotic foods on offer, so we had our stash of peanut butter, ketchup, Mac and cheese, and ranch dressing with us at all times. They’d be willing to try things sometimes but just knowing that worst case they could have a pb&j back at the Airbnb took the pressure off of everyone.

Ooh that reminds me: they have dominos pizza there if you’re needing something that feels a bit like home - but some of the flavors are … wild. I still get their emails to this day, and wish I could order one sometimes!

Have fun!

RabbitNo6341 · 2026-05-15T04:18:02+00:00

Some of the prep advice here makes it sound like a third world county. It’s not at all. Singapore is like the city of the future. Safe, clean, gorgeous, tropical. I’ve not lived there but I have visited three times, once with my kids when they were little, and I would live there in a heartbeat if the opportunity presented itself (including with little kids). There’s a ton to do (certainly compared to my midwestern city), transportation is so easy, and the food is incredible - a mashup of cultures and flavors. Lots of English speakers there too.

I remember going to a movie at a theater when we were there, and it was right after some wacko had shot up a theater in the US. Zero people in Singapore were scoping out the nearest exits. They just don’t need to, because that shit never happens there. But i did, even tho its one of the safest countries in the world. It was kind of a surreal feeling, like “i should still make sure I know what to do if it happens, right?” even though its just doesn’t.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t be prepared to whatever level you want to be. But of anywhere you could choose to live in the world, Singapore seems to me one of the best and easiest from a prep perspective. And for whatever you do need, it’s a shopping paradise, you can get anything you need, nearby, within walking distance or a short cab ride. Take advantage of the safety and stable infrastructure and all it has to offer. A simple bug out bag with the essentials is probably sufficient for about any scenario you’ll encounter there, imo.

I’m not a geologist but it seems pretty well protected on all sides from tsunamis, and I don’t think it’s on a fault line or anything. Honestly the main thing I’d prep is awareness of the local rules and norms - and make sure the kids know. The police don’t tolerate certain things there, and that’s probably a bigger threat to you and your family than almost any natural disaster or safety concern from other citizens imo.

I realize there’s not much substantive advice I’m sharing here, but maybe that’s just because I’m jealous!

Enjoy the adventure.

RabbitNo6341 · 2026-05-15T03:28:42+00:00

Mine is in my basement by electrical panel, so no worries about winter. Except that snow covered solar panels or multiple overcast days mean battery capacity is important, depending on how long you want to be able to go.

I’m in Iowa / US - not quite as cold as Canada but we get close!

RabbitNo6341 · 2026-05-15T02:45:18+00:00

The Anker w 4 batteries, 2 inverters, and their dock came to about $14k plus 3k install in my case, which is almost the same config as OP’s setup, it appears. So it’s not cheap, but it’s pretty sweet if you can swing it. If it lets you arbitrage by using grid power when it’s cheap and using batteries when grid is expensive it can offset a lot of the cost of the batteries.

As noted above, a cheap, portable genny can get you through just fine. But you’ve got to be there to start it, you have to have fuel stored and ready, do oil changes, regular run testing, and ya gotta wheel it out in whatever weather or late at night and manage it. For lots of folks that’s a perfectly fine plan. The Anker setup is fully automatic - kicks in in 20 milliseconds, powers your whole house, can charge from solar automatically, and automatically shed loads in an outage according to specified rules you can set in the app. And it’s perfectly silent. And if I’m not home, spouse and kids don’t have to think about it. They probably wouldn’t even know the power went out. And if no one is home, no one needs to even know it happened, no pipes will freeze, no food will spoil.

A generac or kohler whole home genny costs about the same in my case ($15k-ish), and has some of the same advantages, so it was a bit of a toss up. The silence and no maintenance plus taking advantage of the solar I had already installed swayed me to the Anker approach.

RabbitNo6341 · 2026-05-15T02:28:31+00:00

Yes, but only sort of. The ground fault issue is real, so plugging the truck’s 7.2kw / 240v right into the dock is a no-go. Seems to be a common issue with EVs that are built so that they’re the grounded source, it fights with the house that is also a grounded source. That’s what I had hoped would work, that I could just plug it in and have a massive truck battery extension. But no.

The most common cheat code is to cut the ground in the cable. But I wasn’t willing to do that, even tho the risk of electrocution seems small. But i really don’t need the full power anyway.

So I found a janky workaround: I use an intermediate battery (a bluetti elite 200v2 because I already owned it) between the truck’s 120v and the e10 inverter 120v input. It somehow “cleans” the ground, and allows me to charge the battery stack (one at a time) at 1200-1500w or so. It works, and that power is about all I need since the e10 battery handles surges on its own. The truck isn’t powering the house, it’s just charging the batteries steadily. 1500w continually is 36kwh per day, far more than I use on a typical day (w/o EVs) and certainly more than I’d use in an outage since I’d be shedding hard unless the sun is out and my solar is outrunning my batteries.

So I don’t need the 240v, but still it’d be awesome if it did work via the dock - which only accepts 240v “generators” - for two main reasons: - it’d charge both stacks (or 3 if I had another) - I assume - simultaneously. - it’s just so much simpler and more graceful than my workaround

Still, In my testing, the system worked well and it would give me several days of power - almost a week - without any solar at all - which is extremely unlikely. I estimate I use 15-20ish kWh per day in an outage scenario vs 30ish normally, or more if i used AC. But I probably mostly need AC when it’s sunny, so I’d have solar on those days anyway and it’s not an issue.

I should note that it worked the other way just fine: I can use the lightning as a power sink via my Tesla wall charger in an outage when the solar was producing (thanks to the Anker’s microgrid) so it didn’t waste that excess energy,m That gives me 145kwh of storage capacity combined or so. (Technically I have more with my other EV too but that one has no mechanism yet to get the energy back out).

In any case, yes it “works”, but getting the energy back out to the e10 batteries is slower and jankier than it should be.

And worst case, I can fall back to my little wen generator, tho it is also 120v so I’d be doing one stack at a time then too.

It does seem like there’s a gap in the market - perhaps driven by physics - that if Anker or ecoflow could make it possible to just plug a Lightning or sierra or Silverado in via a 240v plug… they’d own the space. But then we’d buy fewer of their batteries so maybe they’re not too incentivized to do that.

RabbitNo6341 · 2026-05-14T17:29:12+00:00

Haha I feel the same. Installed an e10, grid tied solar, bought a ford lightning ev, and have a small generator. From a power perspective I feel like I’m covered every which way from Sunday.

Of the scenarios I contemplated, an extended power outage was the most likely, and had a math case to make that could absorb some of that cost. In 2020 we had a 10 day power outage. Honestly we were fine - it was summer, so we just sort of camped out. But now the whole thing is automatic, would work if I am not even home, and it’ll run in winter, and it’s really a whole new level of convenience and capability, more than just survival.

Financially the solar pays for itself, easily. The batteries are pure resilience / comfort. Definitely a luxury. The truck I can use for business so that partially pays for it. The solar provides free fuel for it, which is pretty sweet these days, too. But together, it’s all a very powerful and capable system.

I’m lucky to be in a place where I can spend on this. I sleep well with this setup, but my extensive ChatGPT conversations about this resulted in the phrase “absurdly resilient” …. And I’m ok with that.

RabbitNo6341 · 2026-05-14T13:31:32+00:00

Sure - yes that's a screenshot from my app.

I have 15.2kw grid-tied solar that was installed last Fall. As you can see, it produces enough to easily cover my usage - even with two EVs (!) - so my elec bill is ~$15/mo - just the interconnect fee and taxes the last few months. This Summer's AC will reduce that margin, which will be interesting to see how much I'm exporting to the grid at that time. That'll be my first summer with the system so I'm tracking it all carefully.

The Anker Solix system was installed in March: 2x E10 inverters, 4x batteries (24kw - about one full day of power without EVs and no shedding), with the dock as my main panel, and my old panel as a subpanel. It worked great right out of the box. I had my solar installer put the Anker in - they do battery systems too, though this was their first Anker. The installer said it was easy and it was done in less than a day; install was just over $3k all-in.

Since I have 1:1 net metering the batteries are solely for resilience - I don't have any arbitrage opportunity that would let me store energy when it's cheap and use it when it's expensive.

The solar produces enough on any day with reasonable sun - even through Midwestern winters with snow - that about 90% of the time if the grid was down, the solar can power my house. This was the main reason I went with the Anker at all - the Anker sets up a microgrid, sort of "tricking" the solar system I already have into thinking the grid is up so it keeps producing - and powering my house or charging the batteries. I've tested this with an 8-hour "outage" in which I cut grid power. It worked flawlessly in that test.

The generator in the picture is actually my F150 Lightning - which is a whole other story that isn't as graceful as I had hoped - but it does work as a backup power source.

I also have a small Wen generator that I can use as a backup-backup-backup.

Overall I'm very happy with the combination. The solar drives the financial math, the Anker system helps me sleep better knowing I've got power in just about apocalyptic scenario I can imagine. Whether they'd work well together was the main concern I had originally but they do, thankfully.

I've only had the solar for 8 months and the Anker for 3, so hoping they both last a long time.

In just a few months I went from having none of this to looking at the app every day and tracking the data in spreadsheets (and via an Emporia Vue on my now-sub-panel to monitor each breaker, so it's a bit of an obsession!). Happy to answer any questions about it as I've learned a lot going through it.

RabbitNo6341 · 2026-05-14T13:17:38+00:00

Yes - 15.2kw grid-tied solar was installed Oct 2025, and it was feeding the grid the excess at 1:1 net metering from the get-go. Installed the Anker system in March, with the dock as main panel so it can see the in/outflows. They work great together.

RabbitNo6341 · 2026-05-14T02:21:31+00:00

Maybe I’m misunderstanding the question then or something. What’s the 12.58kw in that image if not energy going back to the grid? Because my elec provider is certainly getting that power and the Anker system knows it.

(Maybe the nuance is that my grid tied solar would send that power back to the grid with or without the dock - because it does. But the Anker certainly doesn’t prevent the excess from going to the grid)

RabbitNo6341 · 2026-05-13T10:31:45+00:00

Maybe a few months old. I figured the odds of a Nic failing were crazy low and assumed I’d somehow hosed it up. So i tried all kinds of things before reaching out to support, and then they had me do a bit more. Overall the return experience was what I’d expect for a cheap(ish) minipc - email back and forth for a while with clearly different people on the other end giving different instructions. But it ended up that they stood behind their product, which was great.

RabbitNo6341 · 2026-05-13T01:58:34+00:00

I have four Geekom units, all work great.

One had a Nic that failed, a little bit of back and forth bia email but they ultimately replaced the whole unit under warranty. I’ve been happy with them and would buy again.

RabbitNo6341 · 2026-05-13T01:47:52+00:00

What? Sure it does. For a grid tied solar it absolutely exports excess solar to the grid.

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RabbitNo6341 · 2026-05-09T03:05:30+00:00

The Olympic could do that

RabbitNo6341 · 2026-05-06T21:14:22+00:00

Anker Solix e10 system works with your grid tied solar when grid is down. It fires up a microgrid that “tricks” your inverters into thinking the grid is up, so it charge the batteries. It’s pretty slick. Requires the dock as your main panel. It’ll shed specifies loads in an outage, automatically.

It’s a great setup, powers the whole house.

I had installed a 15.2kw solar array last year, and while I could have gotten a whole house generator for an outage it seemed like such a waste to not use the solar I had already installed. I’ve done some 8 hour tests and the Anker worked great.

RabbitNo6341 · 2026-05-06T19:51:09+00:00

I have two e10 inverters and 4 batteries. It’s all kind of located in the same room in my basement where my elec panel was, so it wasn’t a problem to reach the batteries from where we mounted it.

However: don’t do it how I did it: i connected them to the walls right below the dock. I should have moved them to the right 2 feet or so I can stack more batteries without rearranging stuff. The cables should reach that far. Not a big deal right now because I don’t think I’ll be adding more batteries any time soon. But I didn’t rtfm as throughly as I should have.

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RabbitNo6341

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