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Recommendations on portable power stations
After one too many blackouts for the past few years, we're in the market for a backup power solution.
Guidelines include:
- Would rather have multiple smaller units than one large one.
- Should be enough to charge phones, watch a television, run the Keurig. If it can spike up enough to run a heater or keep the fridge from spoiling, that's a bonus.
- Would like to keep it at ~$300 a unit.
We're looking into a whole home generac as well, but this is more of a bandaid trial solution for now.
Like, how long are the blackouts? Keeping things going ramps up in price real quick the longer you need to go.
APC makes some great battery backups for computers. The 1500VA model can supply up to 900W for 4 minutes, which translates to keeping my router and cable modem online for about 2 hours. It's pretty compact too, and while it won't solve your needs for everything, it definitely helps smooth out small-medium blips, especially for expensive electronics. It can be a great supplement to a power station too.
A fridge will typically use between 800 and 1200 Wh a day. Which means something like the Jackery 240 would power it for approximately 4 hours, provided it doesn't spike over 400W when it kicks on.
Electric heaters are energy hogs, I'd advise a 200W electric blanket and/or buying an emergency kero heater if heating is a big concern.
Just adding that frodge has compressor inside and it may not siwtch on on just any power supply. I don't have much time, but I know EEVblog (Dave Jones) had much larger power supplies and still couldn't get fridges and freezers running on them. You may try and fins his video.on this.
There's no way you're running a fridge on a Jackery 240. Maybe a 1000. See this chart for the why of it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/11q741y/watt_spikes_when_the_refrigerator_compressor/
The tl;dr is that inrush current on household appliance motors means that you need to size (much) larger than you'd think.
I'm no expert, but I looked into it a little a year or two ago.
Basically, for anything beyond a phone and perhaps a reading lamp, you pretty much want a generator. If the use time is going to be hours, generator. If it's a computer (or a fridge, other appliances), generator. Multiple appliances; generator for sure. If the outage is approaching half a day or more, definitely generator.
There really aren't any other low cost options. Not that will give you hours and hours of uptime, that are below $1000.
Batteries are great, but they're still very expensive. You can get a backup UPS for a computer, as an example, and you'll be paying $150-200 and all it really buys you is a few minutes. Basically, they're for what they're advertised for; giving you time to shut down in an orderly fashion.
If you turn everything except the router/modem off, you have a few hours, which isn't terribly useful to a lot of people except to maybe "save settings" that the system would need to get again by phoning home after being offline. Or if you want to use your phone to connect to the wifi (and the cable network is still up outside) you'd have that I suppose. That same UPS could recharge your phone for weeks though.
Last I checked, it was very expensive to get a battery setup to keep a computer (or other high draw appliances) up and running. $1000+ easily, unless you're talking laptop. A generator, on the other hand, was a few hundred. It's not sexy, but for anything bigger than a phone when you're talking hours or days, batteries just aren't really affordable at the consumer level yet. They're still kind of "capital investment" level expenditures. Sure a generator isn't exactly an impulse purchase, but it's not four figures either.
There's a whole warren of rabbit holes you can dive down online, video or sites or podcasts, that touch on this kind of off-grid power. But the answer is still pretty much "be rich" or "generator." There aren't any good, cheap options that don't involve an engine turning an alternator yet.
For what you described (and I don't think an electric kettle, which is pretty much what a Keurig is, qualifies as a low-draw unit), generator. Three to five hundred bucks, park it in your garage or shed, keep a couple of gallons of fuel on hand, and you're set. Five minutes after an outage you're plugging your stuff into a strip off an extension cord and thumbing your nose at the power company.
If you live in an apartment I don't know unless you have your own private balcony. Obviously not having "secured" exterior spaces makes solving this problem harder.
Edit: for daylight, solar panels are inexpensive, but without a battery as soon as they don't have sun you don't have power. But technically just the panels aren't that much. They only last until dusk though.
I looked into this after a multi-day local outage and arrived at the same conclusion. If the power outage is short enough to be handled by battery, then I didn't really need it anyway. Fridge and freezer can maintain safe temperatures for a few hours as long as you keep them closed. I ended up getting a 4000W generator, enough to run pretty much everything I need except for heat. I keep some ethanol-free gas around that I cycle through our lawn mower.
For heat, I'm fortunate to have a gas fireplace that will run off of a D battery if the power goes out. It actually puts off a decent amount of heat, at least enough to not freeze to death during an extended outage.
I've been looking at making one for long-ish term truck living. There is so much markup happening in prebuilt units from Goal Zero/Jackery/Lion IMO. You really only need 1) a LiFePO4 battery with a BMS (battery management system) to do things like low temp cutoff, 2) you need some way to charge it either from a vehicle alternator or a 120v wall outlet, and 3) you need an inverter for whatever specific items you're running. The nice thing is, once you have a charger and inverter, you can basically buy as many batteries as you want, whatever size you want. There's obviously a little more nuance to it than that, especially when it comes to inverters (you'll want a pure sine wave inverter for computers, and they have a peak efficiency you'll want to match to your power draw).
My plan is to actually skip the inverter altogether and run everything on the new 100 watt (eventually 240 watt) USB C spec. I will need to wire up a boost/buck converter to run my laptop though as it draws about 300 watts.
We recently had a power outage during an ice storm. Thankfully it came back after a few hours, but we were very worried about the potential of it going for multiple days. So since then we've been thinking about some backup options.
One really cheap one I've implemented is to use the batteries we already have. In terms of power tools, we're committed pretty well to the DeWalt system. I do a lot of woodworking, so we have a lot of portable power tools for that. We also have some more heavy duty equipment, including the lawn mower, that operate off of that battery architecture.
So we already have access to a decent supply of backup batteries, I just needed a way to get power out of them during an outage. What I found was some cheap USB power adapters that are made to work with DeWalt batteries. They're just cheap plates that slide on top of battery packs and give you USB ports. You can get them for many different types of batteries. I think they cost less than ten bucks.
You won't power a fridge off of this, but for phone backup, it can be a really useful option if you already have some batteries for portable power tools.
Oh snap! It never occured to me to do this, and I've got a few of those. I wonder if this exists for EGO batteries as well...
Edit: Glad I looked.
https://egopowerplus.com/nexus-portable-power-station/
I was thinking something more like this. But those bigger packs have other uses as well. I was thinking about charging phones, but one of those big power banks could power some small appliances, maybe even a mini-fridge.
The big thing for me would be to keep in mind is to make sure you have enough chargers to keep things topped off. I have a wall unit I've put together that has several charger packs mounted into it. I can charge 5 batteries simultaneously. It's a bit much, in the Summer, if I'm working in the wood shop and my partner is out mowing the lawn, it can be useful.
The point being that I can keep 5 batteries continually charged up with zero thought. One of those big power stations looks cool, but it takes multiple batteries to operate. If you don't have enough chargers to simultaneously charge that number of batteries, you'll have to continuously power cycle the batteries in order to make sure you have enough topped up for when a power outage hits.
Is that something you can do? Maybe. But it's not something I can do. I know myself, and unless I make a formal point of regularly cycling the batteries every week, there's no way I'm going to keep a bunch of batteries all at full charge with just one or two chargers. That's a lot of regular effort for a very rare event. Now, maybe you can remember to keep everything charged, but I wouldn't count on it.
Rather, I would get a station like that only if you have enough chargers to keep enough batteries topped off to power the thing. Does that thing take four batteries? Then make sure you have four chargers to keep those topped off.
Now, one thing I do wonder. Can you use a power station like that as a charger? Can you plug that into the wall and have it charge the batteries? Because that would be the ideal. Then you simply replace your chargers with the power station. Normally it sits in the garage charging batteries, but in an outage, you haul the whole thing inside and use it as a power bank. That would be ideal.
Yes, you can, they sell a solar panel adapter to charge and power it.
I also just have like 4 EGO batteries of a few sizes courtesy of using them for my lawn tools. Have two speed-chargers that can top them off in under an hour or two. I also have a generac generator, so I don't actually need the power station for regular backup...I'd be picking it up for camping and/or as a lazy way to expand my solar capacity.
Makes sense!
If you don't want to go whole home generator, you can have a transfer switch and a plug for a portable generator installed on your house. The transfer switch is basically an interlock that ensures that your main panel is either powered by the line or the generator, but not both. I bought a 12,500 W Westinghouse dual fuel (propane and gasoline) generator for $1000, then you are probably looking at another $1000 for the transfer switch.
Side notes:
How is the noise level on that generator? My folks bought one due to frequent outages a few years back, and it was so loud that they haven’t used it much since.
I’m pretty sure an idling semi-truck would produce as much power and be quieter than our old generator. However, they bought the cheapest generator they could find at the rated capacity so I’ve always wondered how much of a problem that is with other units.
I asked my sister who has the same generator and has used it more, and she said it was very loud, but manageable away from the house.
I have a disused firewood shed that I am planning on turning into a generator shed to keep it out of the weather, hopefully mitigate some of the noise, and provide a way to secure it. Although it's very heavy, so it will definitely be a case of, "if someone can steal it, I am not going to mess with them."
If you want some output power (for heater or similar) you are lookind at Delta Pro or Max models. Have a look at their prices... If you want more time/capacity, you need extra batteries for it. The point is you will be in for a few grand and it still won't be that great.
You'd be better having a generator for a few hours of outage. Or a plan how to save energy when on outage.
You may wwnt to have a look at 8bit guy video where he tries to go through one day on backup only.
I've got a few power banks, mostly for travel but I've used them during blackouts too.
The Goal Zero Sherpa 100AC (old model) comes with me pretty much everywhere.
It's the largest size you can bring on a plane. I can charge it with the same 120W GaN charger I use for all my stuff when I'm on the move. 2xUSB-C out, 2xUSB-A and a Qi charger on the top. Even the AC bit works pretty well - I got this one when I was still daily driving an old MacBook and it didn't charge via USB-C, I could just plug in it's wallwart on the Sherpa and charge it.
I'd get the non-AC version today to save on size.
The second one is an EcoFlow RIVER mini (discontinued I think, the RIVER2 is the closest equivalent). It mostly sits at home, but I've brought it along on car trips.
It can charge directly from AC at around 200W or something. Which makes it viable to "borrow" electricity from public outlets if it's necessary. (Say a partial outage around your area, but you can drive 10 minutes to a McDonalds with an outlet for example). Only one USB-C plug, but it's 100W compared to 60W on the Sherpa.
Both can also accept solar panels in a pinch. Goal Zero has their own proprietary-ish 8mm barrel connector for their own specific panels. On the plus side it's really easy to just plug in a panel or two and go, but it's harder to use random panels.
The River on the other hand has a standard XT60 input connector and comes with a bunch of cables that can adapt to it. You can plug it in your car or attach solar panels from any brand to it.
My computers and even my consoles have cheap APC UPS attached. Mostly to prevent sudden shutdowns, but they have been useful in a blackout too. The beeping is infernal though =)
When Putin started Putining and everyone (including me) panicked a bit, I started seriously looking into small digital generators that produce "clean" output that can be used to power modern electronics, but ultimately decided against it. The battery stuff I can use every day, but I don't see myself test starting a generator every month to see if it's still operational. And an untested generator will definitely fail when it's really needed.
Tangent, but has anyone ever considered using an indoor exercise bike for heat? Not only does this obviously heat up the person on the bike, but if you’re fit you can generate 200W pretty reliably. All of that goes into the air eventually. And it doesn’t require any electricity! Just stash some carbs.
This just reminded me of an article Low Tech magazine put out a while ago. Their entire catalog is a gold mine for the environmentally conscious, or off grid folks, but this particular article demonstrates the possibility of running turning a generator with an old stationary bike - sounds right up your alley.
https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2022/03/how-to-build-a-practical-household-bike-generator/
I've sorta been trying this this year. The basement isn't heated via central heating, so I wanted to see if moderate exercise could impact the temperature of one room, but I just can't keep up with the cold temperatures we've been experiencing. Even running BOINC on my computers in the same space is not keeping up with the crushing winter temperatures. Above freezing it's okay, but below freezing, and especially on windy days, there's no chance. Part of that is about insulation, though, but most homes don't have a high enough R-value to make generating heat through exercise look like it's taking place in a closed system. There's too much leakage both ways. I am healthier though! :)
The bad news: You are not spending <$300 and running a Keurig or your fridge. To do either, you need at least a kilowatt unit, and those are kilobucks.
The good news: Something like an Explorer 300 (I use one for my CPAP machine) is within your budget, and will handle phones and laptops (and even a heating pad, electric blanket, or portable compressor fridge) many times over.
https://www.jackery.com/products/explorer-300-portable-power-station
Also worth mentioning: depending on your area, your power company may provide more expensive batteries for low/no cost, at least during the seasons that require it. https://svilc.org/ had lent me a Yeti 3000x in the past, which was a real fridgesaver at the time.