The Home Backup
A timber house on a hillside at blue hour, every window and porch lamp burning warm gold across the lawn.

The power goes out.

The lights stay on.

Every house gets a night like this one. What matters is what’s still running an hour later: the fridge, the furnace, the lamp in the hall.

See the machines we’d buy Or start with the sizing math

150watts
Example load on backup
A closed kitchen fridge, about 150 W running
Start here

Start with the question you actually have

Nobody wakes up wanting a power station. You want the food to keep, the heat to hold, and the phones to charge before bed. Pick whichever question sounds like the one in your head.

Daylit garage with a portable power station on the floor beside a workbench and clamp meter.

Will the fridge make it to Sunday?

A closed fridge pulls about 150 watts and only runs a third of the time. Here is how to add up your own list before anything lands in a cart.

Read the sizing math

 Standby generator on a concrete pad beside a house in daylight.

Does the whole house have to stay on?

A well pump, the furnace, three days of ice. That is a different machine and a real install with a permit on it. We will say plainly when it is your answer and when it is overkill.

Read about standby generators

 Folding portable solar panel on a driveway charging a power station in sunlight.

How do I refill the battery on day three?

Daylight, and somebody willing to go move the panel twice. One number decides whether your station will even accept a given panel: open circuit voltage. Easier than it sounds.

Read the panel guide

The three power stations in this class

Each one holds roughly 2 kWh, which is about two nights of refrigerator by the math above, and each is quiet enough to sit in the same room as. What separates them: weight, inverter headroom, and how far each can grow after you own it. If the house is the job, start with the best solar generator for home backup.

3 models in this category

Product photographs are the manufacturers’ own studio shots, used as supplied. Specifications and prices come from their US product pages, checked October 15, 2026.

Every figure comes from the manufacturer’s own product page, checked October 15, 2026. Prices move, so follow a link for today’s.
ModelRated capacityRated outputWeightPrice
Explorer 2000 Plus Jackery 2,042.8 Wh3,000 W61.5 lb$1,429 kit
AC200L BLUETTI 2,048 Wh2,400 W62.4 lb$899
C2000 Gen 2 Anker SOLIX 2,048 Wh2,400 W41.7 lb$999.99 with a code that expires January 1, 2027 (base price $1,199.99)

See everything on portable power stations

Open fridge lit during an outage with a portable power station on the kitchen island.
A block wide outage, an hour after sunset. The refrigerator behind the drawings is the load most people are really shopping for. Editorial lead art: The Home Backup.

A closed fridge, about two days of tank

A closed fridge draws about 150 watts and runs maybe a third of the time. Put that against a 2 kWh tank and you get roughly two days. There is a longer pencil on fridge runtime, or your own watts in the load calculator. That is the whole ambition here: an outage that turns into board games instead of a trash bag of thawed chicken. What a station will run, what it will not, and how the night goes.

Read what a station really runs

Worth an afternoon, before the forecast turns

What a power station can really run in a house The fridge, the router, a CPAP. Plus the two loads that will let you down if you ask. 8 minute read Home battery or standby generator? A tank of stored electricity against an engine that keeps making more. Pick the physics that matches your storms. 10 minute read Jackery, BLUETTI, or Anker SOLIX? Three good families, three different futures: extra batteries, panel cables, and one 240 volt fork in the road. 9 minute read What a whole house generator really costs The unit is the small number. The install is the invoice. Here is the whole thing, line by line. Still choosing a class? Standby shortlist or standby vs portable. 9 minute read The home batteries you can grow into Start with one cabinet. Add capacity when a few outages have taught you what you actually need, including the cabinet that speaks 240 volts. 8 minute read

Tools and guides

Every section and calculator on the site, in one place.

How this site works (and what we do not do)

Product pages on The Home Backup are based on the makers’ published specs unless a page shows a photo of the unit in our hands. We do not invent test results. Prices carry the day we checked them. Affiliate links are disclosed before the first store link on a page. Method: how we review · disclosure.

Sources and method: manufacturer specs, retailer listings, and dated checks; no lab results are claimed here. See how we review.

How we pick: jobs, printed specs, dated prices. No invented lab tests.

How we make money: affiliate links when a partner program is live; always disclosed.

Prices on this site carry the day we checked them. Check the live cart before you spend.

One boundary, stated early: no rooftop solar here, and no Tesla Powerwall. If an installer is already on your roof with a tape measure, you are on the wrong site. We would rather say that now than waste your evening. More on the about page.