This portable battery station can power your home for two weeks – but heres its real best feature

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If you see the sun regularly, solar generators are the way forward. They allow you to capture and store the free energy that’s beaming down from the sun, convert it into electricity, and store it in batteries.

Solar generators consist of two parts: a portable power station (think power bank, but bigger) and solar panels. The power stations come in all shapes and sizes, from small boxes you’d be happy carrying for a short distance to big boxes on wheels that you don’t want to take too far.

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Jackery, a familiar name in the power station game for over a decade now, has a new power station called the Explorer 2000 Plus, and this thing is a total game-changer. You can scale it up from a single unit, which is good for a day or two of camping, to an array of batteries and solar panels that can power your home for two weeks.

You read that right: two weeks.

Note:I’ve been reviewing the UK version of the Jackery Explorer 2000 Plus, which has different power outlets and input and output voltages but is equivalent to the US version. It’s big.

You might notice that there’s something sitting atop my Explorer 2000 Plus. That’s an add-on PackPlus E2000 Plus battery pack that adds 2042.8 Wh of electrical storage capacity to the system.

This is even bigger!

Is 4,000 Wh not enough for you? You can connect up to five PackPlus E2000 Plus battery packs to a single Explorer 2000 Plus to get 12,000 Wh of storage.

A single PackPlus E2000 Plus weighs 41.9 pounds (19 kg), so the two units combined weigh over 100 pounds (46.9 kg). Still not enough? No problem!

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You can join together two Explorer 2000 Plus units, each connected to five PackPlus E2000 Plus battery packs, to give you a whopping 24,000 Wh of power-storing capacity — enough, according to Jackery, to provide power for the average household for two weeks.

This setup will cost you a cool $22,500, but there’s little to compare with the power and flexibility it offers. Okay, let’s wind back and look at the Explorer 2000 Plus.

Compared to many power stations, this is quite a streamlined unit. On the front is a compact display, a few buttons, and a handful of outlets.

To help move the power station, there are comfortable side handles, a retractable suitcase-style handle, and wheels.

Yes, wheels. The retractable handle and wheels help alleviate some of the effort required to move the power station, especially when additional batteries are used. This is easily my favorite part of the device, considering how bulky and heavy it is to lug around.

If you have an add-on battery, a cable is used to connect the two units together.

There are a few things that I look for when testing a power station.

First, the inputs, outputs, and rated capacity must match the published specifications (see the specifications list above).

The Explorer 2000 Plus passed all my tests with flying colors.

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The power outlets were fine, supporting a continuous load of 3,000W and even surges of 6,000W. If you push the power station beyond this, the Explorer 2000 Plus gracefully powers down and waits for you to reduce the load.

Under heavy loads, there are fans that kick in to keep everything cool (which also come on when charging the unit), but these fans are quiet — only 30dB, or how loud a library is — and the Explorer 1500 Pro can handle a 3,000W continuous load without any difficulty. It’s a very well-designed unit.

The USB and 12V outputs also live up to the specs. The 100W USB-C ports are particularly useful for those of us who may charge and power our laptops off a power station.

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The 2,000 Wh capacity is huge. It can charge your iPhone over 80 times or run a mini fridge for over 12 hours. It’ll also power a portable air conditioner for a couple of hours, or a heavy-duty welder for 40 minutes.

It’s a lot of power, and this is just the Explorer 2000 Plus. A single PackPlus E2000 Plus battery packdoubles this.

As for recharging, the unit takes two hours to charge when connected to AC or six 200W SolarSaga solar panels, seven hours from two 200W SolarSaga solar panels, or 25 hours from a 12V car adapter.

I also like to test durability, and so far the unit has been thrown into the back of a truck, dragged around different places, and dropped a bit roughly more than once without any ill effects. It’s a really rugged product.

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Another thing I like to test is longevity. Nothing beats taking it into the wild and relying on it for several weeks. I’ve not been able to do that yet, but I have been using the Explorer 2000 Plus as much as possible and putting around a dozen charge cycles through it. So far, it’s holding up well, and I’ve had zero problems.

Everything is well-built and tough; it takes being knocked about, and it delivers what it promises without needing to rely on extreme, over-inflated specs.

ZDNET’s buying advice

The Jackery Explorer 2000 Plus is a solid, expandable portable power station. If you’re in the market for a power station for in-home use or outdoor adventures, it is an excellent choice that should give you years of use. If problems befall your unit, you can fall back on Jackery’s excellent warranty.

Jackery Explorer 2000 Plus tech specs

• Capacity: 2042.8 Wh
• AC output: AC Output(×4): 120V~ 60Hz, 20A Max
  AC Output(×1): 120V~ 60Hz, 25A Max
  AC Total Output: 3,000W Max, 6,000W surge peak
• USB-A output: x2 Quick Charge 3.0, 18W Max
• USB-C output:x2 100W Max, (5V, 9V, 12V, 15V, 20V up to 5A)
• Car output: 12V⎓10A
• AC input: 120V, 60Hz, 15A Max
• DC input: 11V-17.5V, 8A Max
  17.5V-60V, 12A Max
• Battery: LFP (LiFePO4 battery)
• Rated charge cycles: 4,000 cycles to 70%+ capacity
• Weight: 61.5 lbs/ 27.9 kg
• Dimension: 14.7 x 18.6 x 14.1 inches/37.36 x 26.90 x 47.3 x 35.94 cm
• Operating temperature: -10~45°C/14~113°F

Update log:

• This article was originally published on July 24, 2025, and was updated on December 5, 2025, after a thorough fact-check and with mentions of the new price post Black Friday. A specifications chart has also been added for clarity on the portable power station’s input sources, output power, and dimensions.