into the residential energy storage space. This year, Generac is pushing the envelope further with a new line of portable power stations, starting with the 1kWh GB1000 and the 2kWh GB2000.Disclaimer: Generac provided the GB2000 to the author for the purposes of this review.Generac reached out for us to review the GB2000 and we quickly got to work.
An AC button sits below the AC outlets that turns on the inverter to flips the stored DC power into AC to activate the outlets. Similarly, a DC button near the USB outlets turns on the DC outputs, including a 12 volt automotive style adapter and a pair of barrel-style DC outlets. Finally, at the top of the unit, a 15 watt wireless charging pad enables quick and convenient charging underneath the handle of the unit for phones equipped with Qi compatible wireless charging.
The pouch on the rear of the unit is a convenient place to store the cables that come with the GB2000. Image credit: Kyle Field, CleanTechnicaTo charge up the unit, we set it up outside with a 100 watt Renogy solar panel tapped into the side. It easily gulped down the 100 watts being pushed out of the solar panel and it’s easy to imagine using a setup like this as emergency backup power source during a grid outage. It can pull in a maximum of 468 watts from solar at anywhere from 10-28V DC.
The Generac GB2000 can also be recharged from a standard AC wall outlet. We tapped into this after depleting the battery in our testing and found that it recharged from 6%-100% in just over 5 hours, pulling down just over 400 watts AC. The internal fans on the unit do kick on when charging from an AC outlet, so I found it best to put it in the garage to keep the noise down.
All good except no indication of the price.