Bluetti Elite 100 V2

Introduction

The Bluetti Elite 100 V2 is the little sibling to the exceptional Bluetti Elite 200 V2 I reviewed earlier this year. It looks similar, has a similar range of ports, yet it’s significantly smaller and lighter – around 11.kg, compared to 24kg for the Elite 200 V2. The tradeoff for this smaller device is lower power specifications. The Elite 100 V2 stores just over a kilowatt hour (1kWh) of power, and can deliver a peak of 1800W.

That’s not bad for a device this size. It’s enough to power anything around the home except the typical kettle, washing machine or dishwasher, but not necessarily enough to keep it going for long. One kilowatt hour (1kWh) will light a low-energy bulb for several days, or keep a fridge freezer in business for perhaps a day, but it wouldn’t run a condenser dryer through a full load. It is a huge amount of performance for the money, though, and an indication of how competitive home battery storage has become.

Design and features

• Fair storage and output specifications
• Home-orientated features
• Reasonable range of clearly labelled ports

The Bluetti Elite 100 V2 comes with a decent range of ports, including two 15W USB-A sockets. One of its two USB-C ports is rated at 100W, with the second good for 140W – more than up to the demands of smartphones, tablets or laptops. There’s the obligatory cigarette-style car power output, along with two 12V DC5521 ports, useful for compatible small, portable electronics such as routers.

I’m less enthused about its two AC sockets. While two is probably sufficient on this class of device, they’re arranged vertically, with the top socket upside down. That’s fine for inserting a normal plug, but hopeless if you’re trying to use a top heavy power meter or adaptor, which would obstruct the other socket. At least this device doesn’t have the rubber power socket covers, beloved of Bluetti, which can also get in the way of oversized plugs.

The remaining front port is an XT60 DC connector, which you can use with the supplied solar adaptor to connect up to a very impressive 1,000W of panels. The Elite 100 V2 is also compatible with Bluetti’s 560W alternator charger, which provides a faster top-up for recreational vehicle (RV) owners than the usual car socket adaptor. Talking of which, you don’t get one of those in the box, which is a shame.

Nobody remembers the specifications of all their devices, so it’s great that Bluetti stencils each port’s maximum output next to it. That way, it’s easier to avoid overloading. In this case, it’s also useful to distinguish between the 140W and 100W USB-C outputs. I can’t understand why other manufacturers don’t label every port in this way.

This power supply’s size and weight means it is possible to lug around for a reasonable distance. It’s easy to move it about the house, and feasible to carry it between car and campsite, but you wouldn’t want it on your backpack or bike for any significant journey. It’s not really optimised for camping anyway: there’s no built in light, and it doesn’t have helpful wheels like the Anker SOLIX F2000.

The Bluetti Elite 100 V2’s middling output and storage means it’s not ideal for backing up powerful equipment, but it could excel as a UPS for a small home office, or medical equipment. Here, its 1kWh storage could power a simple workstation through a power cut lasting perhaps four or five hours, or a CPAP machine for around 15 hours. As always, if you’re considering this power station as a medical backup, you must check the device’s requirements, and remember to disable the power station’s Eco mode, which might otherwise switch off the AC output after a period of low power use.

While you could use the Elite 100 V2 in a camper van or other RV, it’s probably not quite powerful enough. Its 1.8kW output is plenty for a toaster, but not for most full-sized kettles. Still, it has more than enough power to run lights, laptops and other lightweight equipment for a few hours.

This power supply is fitted with lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries, rated for 3000 full charge/recharge cycles before they drop to 80% of their original capacity. That’s competitive, but it’s a shame Bluetti hasn’t fitted the ‘automotive grade’ cells from the Elite 200 V2, which are rated at twice as many cycles. Still, 3000 cycles should cover around eight years of heavy daily use, and this supply does come with a strong five-year warranty.

Based on this level of charge cycles, the power station costs around 14p per kWh of power stored over its 3000 cycles. The low purchase price and high storage level combine to give this competitive figure.

You can control this battery power station’s advanced functions through button presses on the front panel, but it’s easier to just use the app. This connects via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, and lets you fine-tune the supply’s behaviour and performance to your liking.

Charging

• Charge from mains or sun, or car with an adaptor
• Maximum 1200W charging power
• Full recharge in just over an hour

You can recharge the Bluetti Elite 100 V2 from the mains at up to 1,200W. As with other Bluetti power stations, this top speed only comes in Turbo mode. There’s also a Silent mode, which aims to minimise disturbance from the cooling fans, and the default Standard mode, which offers a balance between the two. Unless speed is the priority, it’s best to avoid the Turbo mode, which is a bit more demanding on the batteries and could shorten their service life. It’s important to note that Silent mode isn’t actually silent; there’s some hushed fan noise.

As I mentioned, you could connect up to 1,000W of solar input, using which you might expect to recharge in a little over an hour in the ideal conditions. In Turbo mode, I timed a full recharge from 0-100% at a competitive 66 minutes.

It’s a shame this supply doesn’t come with a standard car recharging lead, but these typically only support up to 120W – you’d need to drive around nine hours for a full recharge. You can buy the Bluetti Elite 100 V2 bundled with Bluetti’s Charger 1 alternator recharger. For around £250, this offers up to 560W recharging, making it ideal for camper vans, but it’s not compatible with electric vehicles.

I fully drained the power supply’s batteries, then connected it up to the mains. In Turbo mode, a full recharge consumed 1,143Wh (1.14kWh). Assuming this completely filled the batteries’ 1024Wh capacity, that’s a decent 89.6% efficiency. In Silent mode this was 1139Wh (89.9%), while Standard was most efficient, at 1135Wh (90.2%) for a full recharge.

This power supply can operate in a few modes, from a standard backup configuration where it fully charges from AC or DC power depending on availability, to a more sophisticated time-of-use mode. This lets you configure it to only charge from mains power during off-peak hours, and gives you control of the state of charge (SOC) range it should maintain. In theory, this lets you leave it plugged in and have it recharge to, say, 100% overnight, use battery power in the day until the SOC falls to 10%, then switch to bypass grid power for anything you’ve still got connected.

I found that this did work in practice, but with some caveats. In this mode, the Bluetti Elite 100 V2 doesn’t seem to like being outside of a 5-95% charge window. If it dropped below 5%, it would recharge to around 14% even if that meant using peak-time power.

It also consumed a surprising amount of energy. I was expecting the battery level to drop over time even with no loads connected, due mostly to the overheads of running the inverter that provides AC power. This did happen, but the onboard storage was more than enough to run my router and power a couple of USB gadgets for the duration of my 18-hour non-peak window. Oddly, however, the Elite V2 also used around 13W of mains power just to maintain this mode. I’m not sure why that’s necessary.

Performance

• Stable and quiet
• Useful heavy lifting mode

I’m yet to encounter a Bluetti battery power station that makes much noise, and the Elite 100 V2 is no exception. Its fans spin up after a period of charging, and do so more quickly under load, but they don’t intrude too much. Even when providing its rated 1800W output load from full to empty, it’s not particularly loud or intrusive; I can’t say that for all other power stations. This power supply had no problem coping with anything I threw at it within its specifications. Its impressive 3600W surge power should help it ride out momentary overloads, too.

The Bluetti Elite 100 V2 comes with Bluetti’s useful Power Lifting mode, which supports some devices rated at up to 2700W. That doesn’t mean you can plug in your washing machine and expect it to work, however, it’s only suitable for purely resistive devices such as kettles, toasters or electric heaters. By limiting the voltage and current the Elite 100 V2 is actually providing, the mode lets you get these devices to work, but they’ll offer less heat, or work more slowly than they would on a fully-specified mains connection.

I tested the Bluetti Elite 100 V2 across our usual range of AC and DC loads. While not as impressive as the highly efficient Elite 200 V2, it still performed quite well, offering a peak output efficiency of 91.1% when powering a 1000W AC load. When providing a constant 60W load over a USB-C connection, DC efficiency was an underwhelming 86%.

The best idea of a battery power supply’s efficiency comes when you compare the electricity you put in against what you were later able to get out. This model managed a decent AC round-trip efficiency of 82.2%, and a slightly less impressive DC round-trip efficiency of 77.6%.

Should you buy it?

FAQs