GUIDE72

Power station for a power outage at home: which to buy

A big battery you plug things into. It burns nothing, so it can be used indoors.

Every figure has its source at the end.

All of this, put into a plan for your home, is in the guide Ready in 7 Days.

What to know

  • A power station is a big battery with household outlets. It burns no fuel, so it gives off no carbon monoxide and can be used indoors; a gas generator, never.
  • With the doors closed, food stays safe for about 4 hours in a refrigerator. If the outage is going to last longer, it is the first thing worth keeping on.
  • If someone at home depends on an electric medical device, make a plan with their medical provider before the outage, and ask your power company to put them on its list for priority restoration.
  • Two numbers decide: watt-hours (Wh), how much energy it stores, and watts (W), how much it can give at once.

How many hours it gives

  • Look at the watts (W) of each appliance on its label or on its charger's.
  • For the refrigerator, find its yearly energy use in kWh on the yellow EnergyGuide label and divide it by 365: 300 kWh a year is about 820 Wh a day.
  • Divide the battery's Wh by the W of what you plug in and you have the hours. Take off a margin, because some is lost turning it into household power.
  • Add up the W of everything running at once: if it is more than the battery's output, it cuts out.

Three sizes

All three have a LiFePO4 battery, which lasts thousands of charges, and take ordinary plugs. Choose by what you want to keep running, not by the biggest.

  • Small: BLUETTI Elite 30 V2

    288 Wh and 600 W, about 9.5 lb. For the router, phones and a lamp through a one-day outage. It works as a UPS: when the power goes, it switches to battery in 10 milliseconds and the router doesn't even turn off.

    Check price: BLUETTI Elite 30 V2

  • Medium: Jackery Explorer 1000 v2

    1,070 Wh and 1,500 W. Keeps a refrigerator that uses 300 kWh a year running for about a day, or the router and phones for several days.

    Check price: Jackery Explorer 1000 v2

  • Large: BLUETTI Elite 200 V2

    2,073 Wh, about 53 lb. About two days with the refrigerator, or for a medical device if the doctor agrees. The maker promises over 6,000 charge cycles.

    Check price: BLUETTI Elite 200 V2

The links go to amazon.com and are affiliate links: if you buy through them we earn a small commission, at no extra cost to you.

Keep it ready

  • Charge it to 100 % as soon as it arrives and write down the date.
  • Check it when the clocks change and, if it has dropped, charge it again.
  • If it works as a UPS, leave it plugged in with the router connected. If your provider's network goes down there will be no internet anyway, but the router stays on.
  • In the outage, the essentials first: the refrigerator, the lights, the phones and the radio.

The rest for the first day without power (flashlights, radio, water), in the kit.

Don't do this

  • Never use a gas generator inside your home or garage, even with doors and windows open.
  • Don't plug in space heaters, hair dryers, the oven or the stovetop: they drain the battery in no time.
  • Don't charge it or store it in the sun or next to a source of heat.

Sources

Checked on 11/03/2026.

This does not replace instructions from the authorities or 911: if they say something different, do what they say.

The battery is half of a power outage

In Ready in 7 Days, day 4 is light: every flashlight ends up in its place and every battery charged with its date, and the power outage card says what to do in the first hour. If someone at home depends on a device, it tells you who to talk to before the power goes.

Buy the guide $5.99plus sales tax where it applies

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