From ESS News
Anker announced the S5000 on October 9. I tested a pre-release unit in Northern California, focusing on charging, usable capacity, idle consumption, portability, and backup during a multi-day power outage.
Read on to see how my father-in-law’s legendary homemade pasta sauce survived a real three-day outage, and what my mother-in-law said!
(Previously, I also tested out the Anker Solix E10 back in May, a whole-home backup, and the Anker Solix S2000 as well.)
The S5000 is a wheeled power station with 5,024 Wh of LFP storage and a 4,500 W inverter that supplies both 120 V and 240 V.
According to Anker, the L14-30R keeps supplying 240 V while the S5000 charges from a 120 V outlet or generator. I didn’t test that.
Source: Anker
The S5000 charges four ways: AC, solar, Anker’s Smart Generator, and a vehicle alternator. I tested AC and solar.
I ran two full 0–100% charges from a standard U.S. 120 V, 60 Hz outlet with an energy meter at the wall: one at the app’s 1,800 W maximum and one at 1,000 W. I didn’t test 240 V charging.
AC charging from a standard 120 V outlet. The AC input, on the rear next to the wheels, uses an E10-style locking connector, though the receptacle is specific to the S5000 and doesn’t take E10 cables.
Wall draw held at about 1.79 kW for 2 h 49 min, then stepped down to about 1.43 kW for the last 50 minutes. That matches a footnote in Anker’s specs: at 120 V, the 1,800 W rate is limited to under three hours when current exceeds 12 A. The 1.43 kW stage sits just under 12 A, or 80% of a 15 A circuit.
That final stage delivered 19% of the charge. Averaged over the full charge, the S5000 drew about 1.7 kW from the wall, not 1.8 kW.
Wall draw stayed flat at about 1 kW for the whole charge, with no step-down. Compared with the 1,800 W setting, the charge took 65% longer and used 1.7% less energy from the wall. The lower setting is useful on a shared circuit or a small generator, but the efficiency gain is small.
On both charges, the final taper at 100% lasted only 1–1.5 minutes. The app and display read lower than the wall meter, and the gap grows with charging power. I don’t know where in the power path the S5000 takes its reading, so I can’t attribute the gap to charger losses. Each 1% of displayed charge took 61–62 Wh from the wall.
The app during the 1,800 W-setting charge, reporting 1.677 kW of input while the wall meter read about 1.79 kW.
Charging was very quiet, surprisingly quieter than the smaller S2000. Anker lists noise as under 30 dB without stating conditions; I didn’t measure it. There was a faint warm-electronics smell during the first few charges, though it never bothered me.
The S5000 has two solar inputs, rated for 3,000 W combined:
I wired two Anker Solix PS400 panels, each rated 400 W at 48 V and 8.33 A, in series to the high-voltage input. The PS400s are rugged and paired well with the S5000: hookup was simple, and output peaked at 680 W on a sunny October day, 85% of their combined rating of 800 W. The panels, not the input, set that limit.
The S5000 with two PS400 panels.
The high-voltage PV input, with the low-voltage input below it. The panel to its left is just a blank cover.
The S5000’s DC input accepts up to 4,500 W from Anker’s Smart Generator, a multi-fuel AC/DC generator; Anker rates charging into a single S5000 at 4,300 W. The same port connects expansion batteries.
The DC input uses the same connector style as the Anker Solix E10. These connectors work well once seated, but I’ve seen their plastic locking tabs break off. On the S5000, the receptacle sits somewhat close to the ground, and its orientation directs the cable downward with limited clearance.
The S5000’s DC input, with its A, B and C inputs above a 16-pin connector.
Unfortunately, the E10’s Smart Generator cable wouldn’t fully seat in the S5000. The receptacle’s non-circular A, B and C inputs seem to prevent full insertion. I’m not sure whether that’s specific to this pre-release unit or something else, but it meant I couldn’t test generator charging. It’s a reminder of the risk with proprietary connectors: cables from the same product family that look interchangeable may not be.
The E10’s Smart Generator cable, with the orange seal still exposed: the plug stops short of full insertion in the S5000.
Anker’s 800 W Alternator Charger, sold separately, wires to a vehicle’s 12 V battery and charges the S5000 through the low-voltage input while the engine runs. It’s aimed at RVs and vans and I didn’t test this functionality.
In my testing, the app reported 4.87 kWh delivered on a full discharge, 97% of nameplate. Against the 6.24 kWh drawn from the wall to charge it at the 1,800 W setting, that’s a 78% round trip. I didn’t meter the output, so the capacity and round-trip figures rely on the app’s discharge reading.
Anker rates discharge efficiency at 96% at 1,000 W and 90.5% at 4,500 W. Those figures cover only the battery-to-outlet step; a round trip also includes the losses from charging.
On battery, with the 120 V output on and nothing connected, the S5000 lost 5% state of charge in 24 hours. That’s about 10 W, consistent with Anker’s 8.8 W figure given that the display only shows whole percentages. That works out to about 20 days on a full battery. Anker rates standby at 21 days (512 hours) at 120 V and 14 days (341 hours) at 240 V.
Plugged in and full, the S5000 drew about 7 W from the wall, or about 60 kWh ($18 at 30¢/kWh) over a year on the charger.
All discharge testing used the 120 V outlets; I didn’t test the 240 V output. A portable air conditioner ran for more than four hours at about 1 kW without issue.
During a PG&E Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS), when the utility cuts power to reduce wildfire risk, the S5000 ran my in-laws’ large refrigerator, plus phones and other small devices, for 61.5 hours, going from 100% to 18%.
My father-in-law’s legendary homemade pasta sauce survived, and my mother-in-law summed it up: “That was amazing, it was Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night and it’s still going!”
The S5000 set up next to my in-laws’ refrigerator ahead of the PSPS event.
Using 82% of the battery works out to about 4 kWh, based on the 4.87 kWh full-discharge figure. That’s roughly 65 W on average, including the S5000’s own draw. At that rate, a full charge would last about 75 hours. Anker rates the S5000 at up to 86 hours for a 700 L fridge alone at 25°C, so my result, with extra devices on the load, is close, and mileage may vary if the fridge or freezer aren’t opened at all.
The S5000 is solidly built, and its sturdy telescoping handle makes it easy to wheel around on flat ground. On grass or rough ground, it gets wobbly and is prone to tipping; it’s only 27 cm wide. At 44 kg, it’s hard for one person to lift; two people, as the instruction card recommends, can manage stairs or loading it into a car.
Anker’s home backup products follow two tracks: permanently installed whole-home systems and portable power stations. The E10 is the first: an inverter, stackable 6,144 Wh B6000 battery modules, and a Power Dock that handles transfer switching and per-circuit control. The S5000 is the second: it plugs in where it’s needed, or feeds a house through a transfer switch or inlet box on its L14-30R outlet.
The two share one piece of hardware: the Smart Generator, which can charge either one. Beyond that, the S5000 has no integration with the E10 system, including the Power Dock.
The line between them has to be drawn somewhere, and the S5000 sits right on it: it holds 82% of what a B6000 module does. It can already back up selected circuits through an inlet box, but Power Dock support would add automatic switchover and let it double as E10 storage you can unplug and take elsewhere. It isn’t rated for outdoor use like E10 equipment, but a Power Dock in a garage would be within reach.
The S5000 is portable, it has wheels, and it stands up to testing. At 44 kg and 5 kWh, it’s about as much as you can pack into a high-output power box.
For portable home backup, it can run a fridge and essentials from its outlets, or feed selected household circuits at 240 V through an inlet box. Heavier loads like central air or electric cooking would drain 5 kWh quickly, which is where Anker’s expansion batteries come in: about 5 kWh each, up to 30 kWh in total. I didn’t test them.
Contractors and tradespeople get 4,500 W continuous and 8,000 W peak, enough on paper for most corded tools, plus 240 V for heavier ones. On a job site, the weight and the potential for tipping on rough ground are the bigger concerns. A shop vac drawing about 1 kW ran without issue, but I didn’t test other tools.
For areas with long outages, or anyone who wants to be prepared, the range of charging options stands out: solar or a generator can keep topping up a battery that already runs a fridge for days.
An RV can plug into the S5000’s TT-30R, with the battery covering high loads like an air conditioner. It lacks the 12 V DC output common in RVs and similar setups.
But for basic camping, it’s overkill: a two-person lift, with far more output than most campsite loads need.
In many ways, the S5000 is a larger-capacity S2000 with 240 V output. One small difference that I found useful is that the S2000 has outlets on both the front and rear, which I like, while all of the S5000’s outputs are on the front.
Two S2000s are an alternative worth considering. Together they hold about 4 kWh, in two 16 kg units that can sit in different places, each rated at 1,500 W continuous and 3,000 W peak. The S5000 makes more sense when a single load needs more than 1,500 W, when you need its 240 V and TT-30 outlets, or when you simply want longer runtime from one unit.
The S5000 delivered nearly all of its rated capacity and kept a large refrigerator running through a real multi-day power outage.
At the $2,499.99 launch price, it costs just under $500 per nameplate kWh; at the $3,599.99 MSRP, about $720.
S5000 pros:
S5000 cons:
5 kWh on wheels goes a long way: through three nights without power, it did what it needed to do when put under a real test, which was keeping the fridge/freezer cold and the phones charged, and parents-in-law more than happy.
In previous tests, I’ve said storage buys back normalcy, and the S5000 was portable enough for me to take it to where it was needed to deliver that ‘normal’ feeling during a significant power outage.
Being able to help yourself is a win, but helping others as well is where the real heartwarming effect comes in.
Andrew Riha is a computer engineer based in Northern California, where he writes about home energy and other technical hobbies. This review reflects the author’s personal experience.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own, and do not necessarily reflect those held by pv magazine.
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