Power station or balcony battery: which one fits your situation?
Two products that look alike and do different jobs. How they differ in use, legality, efficiency and price per stored kWh.
Different jobs
A portable power station is a battery with sockets. You charge it from the wall or from solar panels and plug devices into it: a fridge during a power cut, tools in the garden, a laptop on a camping trip. It does not feed the house circuit.
A balcony battery works with a balcony solar system. It stores the midday surplus and feeds it back into the house in the evening through the same socket. That makes it a grid connected device, and it falls under the rules for registration and approval in your country.
Legality and safety
Because a power station is not connected to the house wiring, the plug in rules do not apply to it. A balcony battery is the opposite: in Great Britain it is excluded from the plug in route today, and in most other countries its status is unclear. Read our country by country overview before you buy.
Safety is the same for both: choose lithium iron phosphate cells, keep the unit out of escape routes and bedrooms, and follow the manufacturer's instructions for ventilation and temperature.
Efficiency and cost
A power station also has an inverter that draws 10 to 16 W all the time, so it wastes a lot when it powers small loads for hours. A balcony battery is built to run all day at low power. Compare both on the price of each stored kWh over the life of the battery, not on the price per watt hour: our product pages show this figure once prices are available.
Which one should you pick?
Choose a power station if you want backup for a few devices, mobile power, or a first taste of storage without registration. Choose a balcony battery if you already have a balcony solar system, you are home mostly in the evening, and your country clearly allows the model you want. If you are not sure, start with the yield calculator: if your system already covers most of your use, a battery adds little.