Power

Sizing and measurement

Work out the load before you look at any equipment.

• What Size Generator Do You Actually Need? Sizing It Without OverbuyingMost people buy too much generator. They add up the nameplate wattage of everything in the house, arrive at a frightening number, and buy a unit that…
• Watts vs Watt-Hours: Why the Number on the Box Misleads YouA power station named for its watts is sold on its watt-hours, and the two numbers answer completely different questions about whether your backup power will work.
• Appliance Surge and Running Watts: A Reference TableTypical running and surge wattage for household appliances, with the reasons the numbers vary and instructions for finding your own rather than trusting a chart.
• How to Read an EnergyGuide Label to Size Backup PowerThe yellow EnergyGuide label on your refrigerator holds the one number that actually sizes a battery or solar system, and two numbers it deliberately leaves out.

Choosing equipment

• Gas Generator, Portable Power Station, or Home Battery: Which Backup Actually Fits Your House?For most homeowners, a portable generator is the least expensive way to cover long outages, a portable power station is the simplest way to run a few…
• What a Portable Power Station Cannot Run, and WhyThe loads that sit outside the reach of portable battery backup regardless of budget, and the physical reasons the marketing never mentions them.
• How Long Will a Power Station Run a Refrigerator or Freezer?Enter your appliance's annual kWh and a power station's watt-hours to calculate refrigerator or freezer runtime, capacity, and startup compatibility.
• Why Your Rooftop Solar Shuts Off During a BlackoutGrid-tied solar systems disconnect the moment the utility goes down, by design and by code. What anti-islanding is, why it exists, and what it takes to keep your panels working in an outage.

Solar and batteries

What a panel actually delivers, and what a battery actually stores, once the label stops flattering both.

• Why Solar Panels Never Hit Their Rated WattageA 200W panel produces closer to 130W in good conditions and far less in bad ones. The five losses between the label and the battery, and how to derate honestly.
• How Many Solar Panels Does It Take to Recharge a Power Station in One Day?Refilling a 1,000Wh power station in a single day takes roughly 300W of panel in summer and 700W or more in winter, and the station's input limit often decides the answer before the panels do.
• Portable Panels vs a Permanent Array for Outage BackupPortable panels cost three to five times more per watt and produce less, but they work during an outage without a battery, a permit, or an inverter replacement. When each one is the right answer.
• Can You Charge a Power Station and Run the Fridge at the Same Time?Pass-through charging works on most modern power stations, but net charge rate is solar input minus load draw, and some units handle the simultaneous job badly enough to matter.
• LiFePO4 vs Lead Acid for Backup PowerLead acid gives up half its rated capacity to depth-of-discharge limits and lasts a few hundred cycles. LiFePO4 costs more up front and less per usable kilowatt-hour over its life, with real exceptions.

Connection and safety

Backfeeding a utility line kills line workers. This group is not optional reading.

• Transfer Switch, Interlock, or Extension Cords: How Should You Connect a Portable Generator?You have sized the generator and worked out the fuel. The remaining question is how the electricity gets from the machine in the driveway to the things…
• What Size Extension Cord Do You Need for a Generator?Calculate generator extension-cord gauge from load, length, voltage drop, and cord rating without confusing wire size with plug compatibility.

Fuel and runtime

• How Much Fuel Does a Generator Use During a Three-Day Power Outage?Nobody actually wants a gallons-per-hour figure. What people want to know is how many cans to fill, or how many propane cylinders to keep, so that a…

Specific loads

• How to Heat a House When the Power Is OutThe most common heating failure during a winter outage is not that the furnace broke. It is that the furnace was fine and could not run.
• How Do You Run a Well Pump During a Power Outage?A residential well pump needs surprisingly little energy over a day and a surprisingly large amount of power for about two seconds. That single…
• Battery Backup, Water-Powered, or Generator: Which Sump Pump Backup Actually Works?The storm that floods your basement is frequently the same storm that takes out your power. That correlation is the entire problem, and it is why a…

Grid risk and case studies

How likely an outage is where you live, and what the documented failures actually looked like.

• How Long Does the Power Actually Stay Out Where You Live?The average American household loses power for somewhere between two hours and thirty-one hours a year, depending entirely on which state it sits in.…
• How to Read a Grid Reliability Report for Your Own RegionEvery year the North American Electric Reliability Corporation publishes an assessment of whether the grid can meet demand across roughly two dozen…
• Texas 2021: What Actually Failed, in OrderWinter Storm Uri is the best-documented modern grid failure in the United States, and it is far more useful for planning than any hypothetical. It…
• Colonial Pipeline: What a Real Infrastructure Cyberattack Looked Like"Can a cyberattack shut down American infrastructure" is a question with an actual answer, because it happened in May 2021 and the details are public.…
• What an EMP Would Actually Do: The Evidence, Not the Sales PitchElectromagnetic pulse is the most heavily marketed fear in preparedness, and almost every page you'll find about it is attached to something for sale.…