Generators and Lithium Power – A Cautionary Tale

Still in the process of getting things up and running in our new home and still without electricity – so apologies to various tech companies waiting for unbiassed reviews, meanwhile a quick cautionary tale for anyone thinking of buying a generator when moving home…

Utterly oblivious to the complexities of off-grid power, back in February 2026 when we moved into our new home, I bought a large Genergy 5.5 kW unit from Obramat here in Spain and an Oukitel lithium power supply from AliExpress.

What more could you want? Note the claim in the generator specs (.pdf manual in link above) – sound level 97db – my backside – we’re so lucky to have a garage away from neighbours – the machine is so noisy you can’t think when within 3 metres of it. Our garage could be acting as an echo chamber of course.

That’s one problem – the second is down to my ignorance: I read “electronic stabiliser” to mean “smooth power”. The output from this generator is anything BUT smooth – lights flicker a little (even with minimal load) and as for charging my Lithium power supply – NO chance, not even converting the 220vc output to 48v DC and using that in the Oukitel’s solar input pins- the Oukitel unit just won’t have it. However, the generator works reliably – we can heat hot water (VERY important right now) and run the house lighting and my PC. When I asked Genergy about charging power packs – they simply said “sorry it seems you have not bought an “invertor-generator”.

I’d have sent the unit back but it’s winter even here in Southern Spain and the electric company Endesa are not known for speedy service – indeed it seems they have little regard for our small village full stop – we have no mains power in our new home and nothing like a date to get it in. As you can imagine, we absolutely have to have power. Update – Genergy (A Spanish company who respond to emails in English) are very helpful – read on.

That brings me to our second purchase, the Oukitel 2KW Lithium supply… the “Oukitel P2001E Plus portable power station”. I’d show you a better stock picture but only weeks after making the purchase, AliExpress website now says “Sorry, this item’s currently unavailable in your location.” – would you believe it… that of course could be because I paid just under 500 euros for it with AliExpress (including post and taxes etc) and Oukitel EU are now placing posts on Facebook selling it in an “Easter Special” offer in Europe for 759 euros.

For size and weight, let’s just say that despite doing LOTS of painting and then there’s my weekly Yoga sessions, I now have muscles I didn’t think existed and elbows that ache beyond belief. This thing is HEAVY.

I bought the Oukitel partly for capacity and partly as it features WiFi remote control – that is, if it decides to update the app which it often does not. A message sometimes pops up to say “power cycle the unit” – yeah, right – that’s providing my power, for heaven’s sake.

At this point I should say that Oukitel have been TOTALLY unresponsive until today (March 27, 2026, several weeks since I first contacted them). Thankfully, aside from the dodgy Android “Wonderfree” app connection – it works.

The muscles come from lugging the Oukitel over to a friends’ house every day to charge it, leaving it for an hour or so on charge then returning to pick it up. The unit DOES work – I just under-estimated the power needed overnight in a home with only a fridge, WIFI and routers connected as well as phone chargers and very little else.

Why can’t I leave a generator on overnight? Because the Genergy 5500W unit appears to run flat out regardless of load and a full tank of fuel would not last the night – not to mention that the noise would raise complaints – and I won’t even start on the cost of running such a generator constantly given current world price increases for petrol.

That brings me to the third and most disastrous part of the plan so far. Once I realised that the Genergy generator would indeed run power tools (handy when moving into a home that needs LOTS of work) and run the hot water tank, but not be that clever in terms of running costs etc. and would NOT charge the Oukitel battery unit (I now wonder if that’s down to bad design of the Oukitel unit but as I can’t get sensible answers out of Oukitel, who knows). SO – I purchased from Amazon a “MaXpeedingrods Gasoline Electric Generator 2000W portable invertor-generator”.

It seemed that at last I might have some kind of working solution to our hopefully temporary power problem in our new home (because Spain’s Endesa electricity company are notoriously poor – some people moving to our village have been waiting a year to get connected).

The MaxPeeingroods unit provides 2KW of mains power out – just above the maximum mains input the Oukitel will take.

Was this starting to take shape? The Oukitel will not only take in mains power to charge but also anything from 12v to 60v DC including solar (at the same time). I figured I could charge it from the MaXpeeedingrods generator and when there is sunshine, top it up from solar.

Two problems – we had the most horrendous storms here in Southern Spain for weeks with only a few days of sunshine, hardly any with full sunshine all day. The best I’ve achieved is maybe 40% charge on solar which would only provide a few hours for overnight use.

But by FAR the worse part of this story is: The MaXpeedingrods unit worked for precisely one day – what seemed like one load of petrol. On the second day – nothing – it simply would not start.

Not so long ago, I knew zilch about generators. That has changed but I’ve still some way to go. As Amazon didn’t deliver this themselves but shipped via a third party (always a challenge), I rejected the initial thought of simply returning the unit for a replacement when discovering it would not start after only one successful day. The Amazon ad in small print says “item non-returnable”.. and it’s HEAVY – and the delivery company messed up the delivery and left the unit at a local tobacconist without letting me know – did I want to go though all of that again including sending the generator back? Hell no.

Instead, I emailed MaXpeedingrods from their site MaXpeedingrods.es

I got replies at odd hours of the morning – it turns out that .ES support is in China (I also emailed support in the UK but the latter didn’t even bother to respond).

I have to say that initially, responses from MaXpeedingrods support seemed very helpful. Overnight -what I now think was an automated response suggested I “temporarily short out the CO2 sensor”.

That first message said “Based on the details shared, the generator’s inability to start and the flashing red overload light may indicate potential issues such as overheat protection activation or a CO sensor fault.”

I could not find any CO2 sensor – ZILCH in the manual on the subject…. just as well I didn’t follow through because subsequent human responses confirmed that the red light flashing briefly on start-up (or start-up attempts) is normal.

That second email response suggested that air might be trapped in the fuel line – they suggested draining the carburettor. I managed that despite knowing nothing about engines. No effect – the generator would still not start up.

24 hours later and another round of emails…. “Please reach out to us again tomorrow. We expect to have a definitive answer and a resolution for you once the factory team has completed their review.”

The next day “After further consultation with our technical department regarding the cold weather in Granada, we believe the starting issue is likely related to the oil viscosity in these low temperatures. Since your generator is a manual start model without a battery, it relies entirely on the speed of the pull to generate enough internal heat and compression to ignite.”

They suggested I use an oil better suited to cold temperatures. I went out and bought a litre of their recommended oil (not cheap).

No change – the generator still refused to start.

The company then (24 hours later) offered a 50% refund so I could have it serviced locally. Well, that wasn’t going to happen and in the circumstances – just as well I didn’t take that option.

The following day after I’d sent video and images to show the unit failing to work , the company upped their offer to an 80% refund.

Meanwhile a good friend came over to the house, eager to help. Braver than me, he checked the spark plug and noticed – no spark. He then opened the unit to have a look inside and lo and behold….

What you’re looking at above is the coil and spark plug lead which are supposed to be integrally connected – i.e. one piece. It turns out that all suggestions up to now were totally WRONG – the spark-plug-lead/coil combo was in two halves, damaged no doubt in transit – I am 100% sure there was no mishandling from the point of pickup of the generator from the local tobacconists where the particularly rubbish courier SEUR had left it without permission.

How it worked that first day is beyond me, I can only assume that the crack was initially marginal, finally breaking into 2 parts after the heat of the first day of use (I’d assumed the unit stopped due to running out of fuel but maybe not – there is NO visual fuel indicator on this generator).

NOW I thought we were getting somewhere – with the partial refund we’d surely get a new MaXpeedingrods coil combo from Amazon.es? After all, Amazon has dozens of coil combos for, what, 10-15 Euros.. But nothing for MaXpeedingrods specifically and on further checking, nothing with similar dimensions. I contacted the company and asked them for help. At this point it all went downhill..

“We have confirmed that this component is available in our warehouse in China. If you need it, you need to refund at least 200 euros of the previous payment, to us. Then we can send it to you. Is this okay for you?”

Anything at Amazon (who sell the generators)? No – and getting a part from China could take weeks, we needed a working invertor/generator NOW. Secondly we can’t be sure if this is the ONLY fault with the unit… weeks for a spare only to possibly be no further forward? No.

I was SO disappointed after what had seemed like excellent initial support. I checked if the 200 Euros was a spelling mistake – no, it was not.

Meanwhile as the initial 80% refund offer was confirmed over the weekend and as 21st century banks can STILL take days to process transfers even though PayPal can ship money back and forth in seconds, I pressed on and when failing to find the part anywhere in Spain, I updated the company on lack of success and they ultimately they initiated 100% refund (which doesn’t cover the two bottles of oil I purchased).

So at this point we were still burning up a small fortune in petrol to run the big generator in even more cloud-covered days (start of march 2026) and relying on a friend to get the Oukitel charged for overnight electricity.

The moral of the story – if for whatever reason you are lacking mains electricity and decide to go down the generator/battery route – don’t be like Peter – find out EXACTLY what you are getting and no matter how cold you might be – read as many reviews as possible BEFORE making a move.

There is more to this story – we finally returned to the Obramat store at the coast in Murcia where we bought the Genergy 5500W unit and wouldn’t you know, they have a range of generators including the Genergy Feroe 4600W invertor-generator.

More expensive, slightly less power but after the helpful advice in English I’d encountered from Genergy in email, we went ahead and purchased the Feroe which has been happily charging the Oukitel while heating up our hot water tank and bed heaters simultaneously. A happy ending? And the price of fuel has dropped here in Spain thanks to the helpful intervention of the Spanish government.

Make no mistake, this is STILL a very expensive way to generate electricity but at least for now we have a working means of powering the house AMD the sun is now shining. More as things develop…

Update April 6, 2026

I’m now using the Genergy Feroe 4600w generator to reliably charge up the Outitel P2001E Plus – a word of caution for anyone considering a Lithium Power Unit – not only has the price of the Oukitel P2001E Plus has magically gone from around 480 euros via AliExpress (I bought mine in January) to 546 euros minimum from AliExpress or a horrendous 759 euros from Oukitel “on special offer” down from 999 euros, but worse – their technical support remains utterly non-existent. After explaining my problem with the “Wonderfree” app (which is the least unreliable app I’ve come across in years) I got one reply to tell me how to install the APP – i.e. completely missing the point – and nothing since despite several emails. Either they don’t want to know or have no access to Google translate. A shame as the actual unit seems to work well otherwise.