PowerPod Lite

Portable renewable microgrids have become increasingly important for disaster response, temporary shelters, and off-grid field operations where centralized power infrastructure is unavailable or unreliable. Emergency agencies rely on temporary power sources to support lighting, refrigeration, communications, and medical equipment during prolonged outages caused by hurricanes and severe storms. Existing solutions primarily consist of fuel-based generators or fixed solar-battery systems, which introduce challenges related to emissions, noise, fuel logistics, cost, and limited field. However, current small-scale renewable power systems lack an integrated, lightweight, rapidly deployable architecture that combines sufficient power capacity, energy storage, protection, and monitoring in a single portable platform suitable for emergency field deployment. To address this gap, we designed and built PowerPod Lite, a portable solar microgrid delivering up to 1.2 kW of continuous 120 V AC power. The system integrates four 100 W bifacial photovoltaic panels, a 24 V battery bank formed by two 12 V 35 Ah sealed lead-acid batteries, a Victron Blue Solar MPPT charge controller, and a pure sine wave inverter. An ESP32-based monitoring platform provides real-time measurements of voltage, current, and load demand, while DC disconnects, fusing, grounding, and GFCI protection ensure safe operation. The system is mounted on a compact backboard and can be deployed in under 30 minutes. This platform demonstrates a low-cost, fuel-free power solution for emergency shelters and remote response operations.