When you’re spending your hard-earned money on solar gear, you want maximum power for minimum dollars. That’s why DIYers have been wiring server rack batteries into power stations for years. In most cases, this gets you a better price, higher capacity, and better overall value.
But what if there was one lithium ion solar battery that made all that tinkering unnecessary? We’re talking something cheap enough, flexible enough, and feature-packed enough to compete with DIY battery setups.
Well, that’s exactly what you’re supposed to get with the Pecron EP3000 Expansion Battery, a 3000Wh solar battery that costs just $699 and works as both an expansion battery and a standalone power source.
However, not everything lives up to what it’s supposed to be, so we wanted to test the EP3000 to determine if it actually is one of the most cost-effective solar batteries on the market right now. So, let’s find out!
Before we explain what this battery is, why it’s different than most expansion batteries, and whether it’s actually any good, let’s take a quick look at what it’s supposed to bring to the table:
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Basically, the Pecron EP3000 is a power station expansion battery that offers some functionality on its own.
Most power station expansion batteries are what we call “dumb” storage, meaning they’re pretty much useless without being connected to the power station they were designed for. If you unplug them from the host unit, you can’t use them, you can’t charge them, and you can’t access a single watt of power.
The Pecron EP3000 is actually different. Pecron designed this as a semi-independent lithium ion solar battery with its own inputs and outputs, and that opens the door to a ton of creative and practical setups.
For starters, it has USB ports directly on the front, meaning you can charge something like a phone without even owning a power station. It also has a 30A DC output, a 12V output, and a dedicated 400W solar input that lets you charge the battery directly from your solar panels.
You don’t need another device in the system, so you can run a Pecron EP3000 Battery as its own little solar generator if you want. And Pecron includes a huge pack of accessories: a 12V car charger, battery clamps for charging from another 12V source, multiple solar connectors for both folding panels and traditional panels, and an XT60-to-12V socket adapter.
This is why some people, like the Grid Down Preparedness channel, have been using the EP3000 as a standalone power station by simply plugging a small inverter straight into it. You can check out the Grid Down Preparedness Channel to see how this looks.
If you’re only trying to run a fridge, some lights, or something like a fan in an emergency, you can combine this solar battery with a $40 car inverter and get a functioning power station at a fraction of the cost of a full unit. It's one of the most flexible battery options we've reviewed this year.
Even if you don’t go this route and just want to use the EP3000 to expand the storage capacity for a Pecron power station, the practical advantage of this type of battery is huge. Essentially, you could charge the EP3000 with solar panels outdoors while your main power station is running loads inside the house. No other expansion battery offers that kind of independence.
The biggest reason the EP3000 is shaking up the market is simple: price per watt-hour.
Most expansion batteries from other power station brands cost far more while offering less functionality. For example, the EcoFlow DELTA Pro 3 Smart Extra Battery is 4kWh and costs $1,699 (on sale). The DELTA 3 Expansion Battery (for the smaller DELTA) is just 1,000Wh and costs $400.
Anker sits around the middle with the 3,000Wh F3000 Expansion Battery priced at roughly $1,000. Even budget-friendly brands like OUPES charge around $680 for their OUPES B2 Extra Battery, but that only packs 2,048Wh of storage capacity.
Pecron undercuts every single one of them. At just $699 for a 3,072Wh battery capacity, nothing else even comes close in terms of cost per watt-hour. If your goal is simply to add as much power storage as possible to your system, the EP3000 is hands down the cheapest way to do it without diving into really messy DIY server rack battery setups.
Again, versatility is another major strength of this battery. Up until now, EcoFlow has been the industry leader when it comes to launching expansion batteries with cross-compatibility.
For example, the DELTA Pro 3 Expansion Battery we mentioned above can work with the DELTA Pro 3, but they also sell adapters so it can work with other models they sell, like the original EcoFlow DELTA Pro. There are a few exceptions, but backwards and sideways compatibility with their expansion batteries is a common theme with EcoFlow.
Other brands just haven’t caught up. Take Anker as another example, which requires a separate dedicated battery for almost every power station they make.
Pecron takes the EcoFlow approach but pushes it further. The EP3000 works with the E1000, E1500, E2400, F3000, and the E3600, meaning you can mix and match across almost their entire power station ecosystem.
If you start with a small, budget-friendly Pecron power station, like the E1000, and later upgrade to something like an E3600LFP, any EP3000 Expansion Batteries you picked up for the smaller unit will still work.
If you want more battery capacity but don’t need a huge inverter, you can also stack one of these 3,072Wh battery packs under a tiny unit. If you buy multiple power stations for different parts of your home, your batteries can be shared between all of them (and they can be charged independent of the power station). It’s a simple system that saves a ton of money over time.
The only exception is the F3000, which uses a different connector and requires a separate adapter (sold on Pecron’s website).
It doesn’t come in the box, so buyers should be aware of that. But compared to most manufacturers, who build entirely different batteries for every product line, Pecron’s flexibility is still miles ahead.
While it’s rare that we actually take the time to review a power station expansion battery separately, this EP3000 Battery was worth the extra effort.
If your goal is getting the most watt-hours for the least amount of money, while also getting real functionality and ecosystem flexibility, it’s a clear winner. Its price per watt-hour beats EcoFlow, Anker, and OUPES by a wide margin, and it even starts to approach the value you get with server rack batteries.
Its ability to function as a standalone solar battery makes it far more useful than any traditional expansion battery. And its compatibility across multiple Pecron power stations means you can grow or shrink your system without retiring any batteries.
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