Last updated: March 2026
December 2024. A storm tearing across the south-west of England. My mother-in-law rings at 10pm, sitting in total darkness. No power for four hours. The freezer is starting to thaw -- she can hear water dripping into the drip tray. The broadband router is dead, so no news, no weather forecast online, no idea when the power might come back. The central heating -- electric -- has packed it in. It's 8 degrees C in the living room and still dropping.
I spent two hours on the phone guiding her through candles and blankets. The power came back at 3am. But that night, after hanging up, I ordered a portable power station for her. Because this scenario is going to happen again. And not just once. Storms are becoming more frequent and more violent, power grids are ageing (a significant portion of the UK distribution network is over 40 years old), and planned load-shedding during peak winter demand is no longer theoretical.
To understand what Wh actually means in practice, my article on the watt-hour gives you all the calculation tools you need. This guide is for you -- homeowner or tenant, house or flat -- if you want your household to stay functional during an outage. Not turning your home into a survivalist bunker with three generators and a diesel stockpile. Just keeping the fridge cold, the broadband on, a few lights working, and your phones charged. If you haven't got a station yet, start with my guide to choosing one during the hours (or days) when the grid goes down.
The first mistake, and the most expensive one, is trying to power everything. Your home draws between 3000 and 8000 W during normal operation with the oven, washing machine, immersion heater, and radiators all going. No portable power station replaces your mains supply. That's not the goal, and it's not economically realistic.
The goal of a home backup is to keep the essentials running. And the essentials, during a power cut, turn out to be a surprisingly short list when you think about it calmly, away from the panic of darkness.
The fridge-freezer. Priority number one, and one with a direct financial impact. A full chest freezer holds temperature for 24 to 48 hours without power as long as you don't open the door -- the mass of frozen food acts as a cold store. But a standard fridge (the refrigerator compartment) starts leaving the food safety zone (above 4 degrees C) after just 4 to 6 hours. At that point, fresh items become a risk: meat, fish, dairy, leftovers. Losing £200 to £400 worth of food is perfectly normal after a prolonged outage. A typical fridge-freezer draws around 100-200 W nominal, with compressor startup spikes of 400-800 W depending on model and age.
The broadband router and Wi-Fi hub. 15-25 W between them -- practically nothing in power terms. But it changes absolutely everything in terms of comfort and safety. With internet, you keep access to information (estimated restoration times from your network operator, weather forecasts), to communication (WhatsApp calls, email), and if you have connected security cameras, to monitoring your home. Without internet, you're isolated. And isolation, in the dark, with children panicking, is psychologically far harder to deal with than a simple power cut.
LED lighting. A few lamps are all you need. 5-15 W per lamp -- trivial. But a lit room makes an enormous psychological difference, especially with young children or elderly people. The gap between total darkness and a single lamp in the living room is the gap between panic and calm.
Phone and tablet charging. 10-25 W per device during active charging. Vital for communication, emergency information, and frankly, for keeping the kids occupied with a tablet if the outage drags on. Don't underestimate that practical aspect.
A medical device, if applicable. If someone in the household uses an oxygen concentrator (300-600 W), a CPAP machine for sleep apnoea (30-100 W), or any other electrical medical device, the backup isn't a comfort -- it's a vital necessity. Size your system around this device first.
Adding up the bare essentials (fridge + router + lights + phones), you arrive at roughly 200-300 W of continuous draw, with spikes to 600-800 W when the fridge compressor kicks in. That's well within the capability of a mid-range portable power station. No need for a 5 kWh monster.
The question everyone asks first. And the answer hinges on a single variable: how long do you want to last on your own.
Let's take a standard domestic scenario, the one I recommend as a baseline: fridge-freezer (150 W nominal in cycle, giving a real average of about 60-80 W since the compressor doesn't run continuously), broadband router (20 W constant), two LED lamps (20 W total), charging two phones (20 W averaged out). Effective averaged consumption: roughly 120-150 W per hour.
With a 1000 Wh station (usable capacity of roughly 850 Wh after conversion losses and low-battery cutoff): you last 6 to 8 hours. Enough to cover an evening and night during micro-outages and planned load-shedding events that rarely exceed a few hours.
With 2000 Wh (roughly 1700 Wh usable): you last 12 to 16 hours. A full night and a good chunk of the following day. This is the sweet spot for the majority of residential power cuts in the UK, which rarely exceed 12 hours according to grid operator statistics. You go to bed relaxed, and there's still juice come morning.
With 4000 Wh and above (roughly 3400 Wh usable): 24 to 36 hours of autonomy. You're covering worst-case scenarios: major storms with grid damage, local infrastructure failure, rural areas with long engineer response times. With a solar panel as a complement, this autonomy can extend almost indefinitely as long as the sun puts in a reasonable appearance.
A technical point to bear in mind: a LiFePO4 battery doesn't usefully discharge to 100%. Most manufacturers cut the output when the battery reaches 5% to 10% remaining, to protect the cells against deep discharge that causes irreversible degradation. Count on 85 to 90% of the stated capacity as what's genuinely available to your appliances.
For exact consumption figures for each appliance, check my watt reference table. Your fridge draws 150 W running. You buy a 300 W station, thinking that's ample headroom. You plug the fridge in, the compressor fires up... and the station shuts everything down. Overload protection.
Why? Because the fridge compressor has a startup spike of 400 to 800 W depending on the model, lasting a fraction of a second. The compressor motor has to overcome inertia at startup, and this transient spike is three to five times the nominal consumption. If your station can't absorb that spike, it trips its internal protection and cuts out. Your fridge never starts, even though its running consumption would be well below the station's capacity.
The solution: choose a station with a continuous output of at least 1000 W, with a surge (peak) rating of 2000 W or more. That might sound oversized for 150 W of nominal draw, but it's the price of reliability. Every domestic fridge starts without a hitch on 1000 W continuous and 2000 W surge. Even older models with tired compressors that pull heavier spikes.
If you also want to use a kettle during the outage (because life without a brew at 7am in winter is genuinely grim), you'll need 1500-1800 W continuous output. But not at the same time as the fridge starting up. The smart technique: unplug the fridge from the station, boil the kettle (3 minutes), plug the fridge back in. Sequencing is your ally. No need for a 3000 W station if you manage the order of connections intelligently.
The classic UPS (uninterruptible power supply) that you might know from protecting a desktop computer or NAS has a very specific job: maintaining power without the slightest interruption during the switchover between mains and battery. The transfer time is around 5-10 milliseconds. Your PC doesn't restart, your NAS doesn't lose data, your server doesn't crash.
A standard portable power station isn't permanently wired between the mains and your appliances. It sits in a cupboard, charged, ready to go. When the power goes out, you fetch it, plug your appliances into it manually. There's a dead period of a few minutes (the time to react, find the station, plug things in). Your fridge stops briefly. No drama for a fridge -- it handles a few minutes without power perfectly well, and the internal temperature barely moves. But it's less elegant and less automatic than a UPS.
Some recent stations offer a built-in UPS mode, and that's a genuine step forward. For full details on this feature, I've written a dedicated guide to automatic UPS switchover. The EcoFlow DELTA Pro 3 and the Bluetti AC200L, for example, can be permanently wired between the wall socket and your critical appliances. During normal operation, mains power passes through the station without touching the battery (or with minimal trickle charging). When the mains drops, the station automatically switches to battery in under 20 milliseconds. For a fridge, broadband router, or lighting, those 20 ms are completely transparent -- the appliance doesn't even notice. For a standard desktop PC, those 20 ms might occasionally cause a restart depending on the PC's power supply -- test it at home before relying on the system for sensitive computing equipment.
My pragmatic advice: use a small dedicated UPS (£40-70, something like an APC Back-UPS 700VA) for your broadband router, Wi-Fi hub, and NAS if you have one. These small, low-consumption devices are the most sensitive to micro-outages lasting a few seconds and the most critical to keep online. For the fridge and everything else, a portable station plugged in manually after the outage is perfectly adequate. The fridge will hold while you sort yourself out.
Occasional outage, a few hours, urban flat. You've got a fridge without a separate freezer, a broadband router, phones to charge. The grid is dense in cities, and outages rarely last more than 4 to 6 hours. A 1000 Wh station with 1000 W output does the job without oversizing. The Jackery Explorer 1000 v2 or the Bluetti EB70S are solid choices in this range -- compact and easy to stash in a cupboard. No need for a solar panel in this urban scenario. Budget: £500 to £700.
Long outage, house with a separate chest freezer. The freezer changes everything. You might have £300-500 of food in there, and keeping it actively cold for 12 to 24 hours becomes a financial issue as much as a practical one. Aim for 2000 Wh minimum with 1800 W continuous output and 3600 W surge. The Bluetti AC200L (2048 Wh, 2400 W continuous, built-in UPS mode) is my default recommendation for this case. Its expandable capacity up to 8192 Wh with B300 batteries gives you room to grow if you realise your needs are greater than expected. Budget: £850 to £1,100 for the station alone, plus £500-700 if you add a 200 W solar panel for extended outages.
Rural house in an exposed area, frequent outages. If you live somewhere that loses power several times a year (overhead lines in wooded areas, hillside properties, coastal spots exposed to storms) and outages sometimes last 24 hours or more, you need to think bigger and plan a complete system. The EcoFlow DELTA Pro 3 (4 kWh base, expandable to 12 kWh) with a 400 W solar panel is the most robust consumer setup on the market. The solar panel isn't optional here: it lets you recharge the station during the outage itself, extending your autonomy as long as the sun cooperates. In summer, a 400 W panel produces 1500-2000 Wh per day, which comfortably covers a household's basic consumption. Even in a grey winter, it delivers 400-600 Wh per day -- enough to significantly extend your autonomy. Total budget: £2,200 to £3,500 depending on configuration. A substantial investment, but justified by the frequency of outages and the value of what you're protecting.
Let's be straight. Running a standard electric heater from a portable power station is an energy black hole. A 2000 W fan heater drains a 2000 Wh station in exactly one hour. A 1500 W convector lasts an hour and twenty minutes. Mathematically, it doesn't work for getting through a night, let alone several days.
But there are far more efficient alternatives if you think differently.
An electric blanket draws 50-100 W. For someone lying in bed, it's the most efficient heating solution that exists: direct warmth on the body, no thermal energy wasted heating the air in the room. With a 2000 Wh station, you can run two electric blankets for 10 to 15 hours. That's an entire night, comfortably. Your bedroom stays cold, but under the blanket, you sleep warm. It's counterintuitive but devastatingly effective.
A small 500 W ceramic heater in a closed room of 10-12 m2 can maintain a bearable temperature (not cosy in the strictest sense, but 14-15 degrees C instead of 5 degrees C). With 2000 Wh, you last 3 to 4 hours. That's enough to warm a bedroom before bed and maintain a minimum during the coldest hours, alternating on/off in 30-minute bursts. Intermittent heating is less comfortable than continuous heating, but infinitely more realistic on battery.
The most sensible option for a prolonged winter outage: separate the problems. A portable paraffin heater (like a Zibro or Toyotomi, £80-150) or a portable gas heater handles the warmth without using a single watt from your station. The power station handles electronics and the fridge. Each tool doing what it does best. Do pay attention to mandatory ventilation with combustion appliances in enclosed spaces -- never seal all the openings. Carbon monoxide doesn't give second chances.
Your backup station is useless if it's flat or lost somewhere when the power cuts at 2am.
Keep it charged between 60% and 80% at all times. Not at 100% -- long-term storage at full charge accelerates LiFePO4 cell ageing, even if the degradation is slow. Not below 40% either, because natural self-discharge (roughly 2-3% per month) could take it dangerously low if you forget to check for six months. The "storage mode" on some stations (EcoFlow and Bluetti offer this in their apps) automatically manages this optimal level. Switch it on if your station supports it -- it's the best way to maximise battery lifespan while on standby.
Put the station somewhere immediately accessible, not at the back of the garage behind three boxes of Christmas decorations. During a nighttime outage, you need to find it and plug it in within two minutes, in the dark. My recommendation: next to the consumer unit, or in the hallway cupboard, with a head torch placed on top. When darkness falls without warning, you don't think -- you act on habit and muscle memory. If you know exactly where the station and torch are, you act fast.
Run a full test every six months. On a Sunday afternoon, unplug the fridge from the wall, plug it into the station, check the compressor starts properly (that infamous startup spike), and confirm the station handles the surge without tripping. Check the charge level. Take the opportunity to update the firmware via the app if there's an update available. That's thirty minutes of your time, twice a year. When the real outage hits, you know with certainty that everything works and the connections are sound.
Prepare the cables in advance. A dedicated extension lead plugged into the station, with the fridge cable, router cable, and a lamp pre-routed, ready to connect in one move. No rummaging through drawers at 2am looking for an adaptor. Preparation is the luxury of being able to act calmly when everyone else is panicking.
Let's put concrete figures on the table, because cost is often the main stumbling block.
A basic backup (station 1000 Wh, like a Jackery Explorer 1000 v2 or Bluetti EB70S) costs roughly £500 to £700. It's the minimum safety net for a city flat.
A serious backup (Bluetti AC200L, 2048 Wh, UPS mode, expandable) runs around £1,000. It's the option I recommend most often -- the one that covers 90% of residential situations.
A complete system for an exposed rural property (EcoFlow DELTA Pro 3 + extension battery + 400 W panel) reaches £2,500 to £3,500. A significant investment, reserved for households that experience frequent or extended outages.
These are real costs. But compare them with what an unprepared outage actually costs: a full freezer of ruined food (easily £200-400 to replace), an emergency night in a hotel with the whole family (£100-200), a lost day of remote work because the broadband is down (£100-300 depending on your job), or simply the stress, discomfort, and feeling of helplessness of a night in total darkness with no information and no communication. After two or three serious outages, the station has paid for itself.
And unlike a petrol generator, a portable power station burns no fuel (the cost of which only ever seems to go up), produces zero noise (your neighbours will thank you), emits no carbon monoxide that could be lethal in an enclosed space (the leading cause of death during winter outages in the US), and needs no mechanical maintenance -- no oil changes, no spark plugs, no filters. You buy it, charge it, put it in the cupboard. And forget about it. Until the day you need it.
That day, believe me, you won't regret a single penny invested. My mother-in-law, since she got her Bluetti AC200L in the hallway cupboard with a head torch on top, sleeps much better on stormy nights. And so do I, from the other end of the country, knowing she's no longer helpless.
With a 2000 Wh station and a fridge averaging 60-80 W (the compressor cycles), you get roughly 22 to 28 hours. More than enough for a standard outage. With a solar panel as well, you can stretch it to several days.
Depends on the model. Stations with a built-in UPS mode (like the EcoFlow DELTA Pro 3 or Bluetti AC200L) switch over in 20 milliseconds -- your appliances don't even notice the cut. Standard stations require you to plug things in manually when the power drops. A fridge copes perfectly well with a few minutes off.
Both have their place. A traditional UPS at £60 protects your PC for 15-30 minutes -- enough time to save your work. A portable power station at £800 runs your fridge, router, and lights for 12 to 24 hours. One protects your data, the other protects your quality of life. Ideally, you have both.
With the bare essentials (fridge + broadband router + a few LEDs + phone charging), you draw about 120-150 W on average. For 10 hours overnight, that's 1200-1500 Wh needed. A 2000 Wh station gets you through the night with margin to spare.
Cedric
