Setup and Performance

Now that you have a better understanding of how these massive-yet-efficient power stations even came about, let's go back to the BLUETTI AC200P and see how it works in action. My unit already had a charge of ~55%. Noting that this unit holds the charge for a very long time, the recommendation is to only charge it every six months or so for battery longevity if not used continuously. Press the button and the fans spin for a couple of seconds before turning off, after which the green LED on the anti-vandal switch confirms the unit is on. The biggest sign of the AC200P having turned on is the large LCD display itself. I measured ~10 seconds of initialization before the screen defaulted to the home page seen above. This is a touchscreen without a glass layer, so much so that it does feel like a resistive touch screen for increased durability, but it responds very well without any annoying latency. It is also a multi-color display that gets quite bright even outdoors, but picks up reflections eventually, which makes it harder to use as-is. The home page is where you will probably set it to most of the time for a quick overview of everything connected to the AC200P on a single screen.


Clicking on any of the icons or tabs takes you to the relevant screens, be it for the battery status or general settings, where you can set the date and time and whether you want the alarm buzzer to ring or not, change the language, or change the DC input source from car (default) to PV if using the solar panels for charging. The data tab brings up useful guides and more current and historical data on the system, and the faults tab shows all the possible faults and any active ones. Any major fault, say OCP or OVP, will trigger the buzzer for a few seconds, get the LED ring to flash for AV feedback, and cause the unit to turn off automatically.


You need to click on the DC and AC icons at the bottom of the home page to turn them on for power output, which also initiates the inverter and you will hear as a single click. At this point, you are free to use the various outputs to charge and provide power to your devices. The total DC and AC load will be displayed on the home page with a simple animation of dots underneath to indicate this is real-time, too. A 2000 Wh capacity with 2000 W max load means you can theoretically output 2000 W for an hour, but things are not as simple as that. The real-time battery capacity enters the picture first, of course, and BLUETTI recommends not charging it past 90% for longevity, although you can of course max it out for a day trip. Then comes the actual inverter efficiency, which for the AC200P is rated at ~88%. This means you lose 12% power no matter what, and if you plan on using the AC mains to charge it, there is a further efficiency loss as with any other power supply, including the one running in your system now. Do not use it this way all the time as it incurs ~20% losses for no reason.


Charging off the AC mains is best left for when you plan to make use of the portable nature of the AC200P, where you eat the losses in favor of the convenience of having a large power source in your car, trailer, camper, etc. The included power adapter and brick work well together, giving you ~470 W instead of the 500 W the company mentions. As with everything, efficiency drops the closer you get to 100%. A single adapter thus takes ~5.5 hours to fully charge the AC200P, and you can have a second adapter connected to the aviation connector over an optional cable to reduce that to three hours.


That second connector slot is best used with a different input source, however. This is where you can use the vehicle the AC200P is in to charge it, a lead-acid battery or generator, or even solar power for cleaner, renewable energy. This is where the accompanying PowerOak SP120 panels came in, and I connected all three in series, which worked nicely given the voltage operating range for the solar panels and AC200P. Even in a weird position on my balcony, I was getting 100+ W out of the three. Once I was done taking photos, I re-arranged the panels for a more efficient layout, which resulted in a peak of nearly 250 W, which is not bad for the UK even in summer, but still a far shout from the 360 W with three 120 W units in series.


Above is a primer for the various charging modes, including dual AC power adapters and the cable connections for solar charging with panels in series or individually. PowerOak also sells larger 200 W solar panels, at which point you may have to go with a serial-parallel connection if you have 3–4 connected to the AC200P; say, with two panels in series and this set in parallel with the rest. My use case during testing relied as much as possible on solar charging since I don't really go camping much these days anyway, and running fans as well as my TV off the AC200P provided a nice respite from the hot summer weather here. Simultaneously charging and discharging is not recommended, but everyone is going to anyway. This is where LiFePO4 helps again with a very good rating of 80% capacity even after 3500 charge/discharge cycles meaning there is some leeway to operate it under less-than-ideal condition occasionally and still use it nicely for many years to come.