What size power station do you need? Work it out in a minute

A house with a fridge, a fan and a TV running from a portable power station on one cable, a solar panel and the sun beside it, and a price tag with a meter — Illustration: Real Deal Meter

A portable power station is a big rechargeable battery with the same outlets as your wall, so a fridge, a fan or a TV plugs straight into it. Pick who’s at home and what you want to keep running when the power goes out. You don’t need model numbers or wattages: we count typical figures for each thing, from ENERGY STAR and other public data, and every one of them is in the table at the bottom of the page. The stations and solar kits that cover your list appear under the calculator, cheapest first, each with the store’s own price and a link to buy it. Or go the other way: set a budget, up to $3,000, and see how long the stations under it keep your things running.

How to read the answer

Watt-hours (Wh) are how much the battery holds, so how long it keeps your list running. That is the big number.
Watts (W) are how much it can hand over at once. The station’s output has to cover everything that is on at the same moment.
Start-up surge: a fridge, a freezer or an air conditioner pulls a burst of power for a moment when its motor starts. We hold that against each station’s surge rating, or against its plain output where the maker gives no surge figure.

A station only shows up as a fit when it covers all three. One that is cheaper but covers only part of your hours is listed separately, with how long it lasts.

What each budget runs

The other way round: the biggest station we list at or under each price today, and how long it would run one thing on its own — or the calculator’s starting list for three people: a standard fridge, a fan, phones, tablets, laptops, a TV, Wi-Fi and lights. Step 5 above does the same for your own list.

Up to	Biggest station we list	Standard fridge	A fan	55–65″ TV	Phone charges	Starting list, 3 people
$500	BLUETTI AC180 Paid link 1,152 Wh · $449.00 at Bluetti, Oct 4, 2026	17 h	13 h	8 h	49	7 h
$1,000	BLUETTI Elite 200 V2 Paid link 2,073.6 Wh · $899.00 at Bluetti, Oct 4, 2026	30 h	24 h	15 h	88	13 h
$1,500	BLUETTI Elite 400 Paid link 3,840 Wh · $1,399.00 at Bluetti, Oct 4, 2026	2 days	44 h	27 h	163	25 h
$2,000	BLUETTI FridgePower + BC200 battery Paid link 4,032 Wh · $1,799.00 at Bluetti, Oct 4, 2026	2 days	46 h	29 h	171	26 h
$3,000	BLUETTI FridgePower + 2 × BC200 battery Paid link 6,048 Wh · $2,697.00 at Bluetti, Oct 4, 2026	4 days	3 days	43 h	257	39 h

Paid links · Each station’s name goes to the store through our affiliate network, and we may earn a commission — see Disclosure.

Hours are the station’s capacity, less the 15% it loses, divided by what each thing draws on average (the table under “How we count”). A dash means the station is too small to start a standard fridge by our count. Each row is one station; the prices are the stores’ own, read on the day shown.

When a solar kit is worth it

A battery on its own is for an outage of hours, or a day or two: Consumer Reports’ advice is that these stations are for outages that last hours, not days, and recharging one from the wall needs the power back. Panels change that on sunny days. Each day they put back part of what you used, so a smaller battery covers a longer outage. We count a panel at 70% of its rated watts for four hours of full sun a day, a fair day in most of the country; cloud and smoke cut that hard.

Two things have to match, and the kits on this page already do: a station takes only so many solar watts, so panels past its limit add nothing, and the panel’s plug and voltage have to suit the station. A kit from the station’s own maker gets both right. Panels bought separately may need an adapter.

What a power station won’t do

Run the whole house. Central air, an electric water heater, a dryer or an oven draw thousands of watts for hours. A portable station is for the few things that matter most. A window or portable air conditioner is possible, but it is usually the biggest thing on the list; the calculator shows what a few hours of it take. A portable unit, the kind on wheels with a hose to the window, counts as about 920 W in our table, against 545 W for a small window unit.
Stand in for a plan for medical equipment. If someone at home depends on powered medical equipment, check its label or manual for its power, ask its supplier whether it can run from a battery, and ask your utility about backup programs. The CDC advises planning backup power for medical equipment, and some California utilities help eligible customers: Southern California Edison’s Critical Care Backup Battery program gives batteries to eligible customers in high fire-risk areas, PG&E runs a Portable Battery Program (its 2026 applications are closed), and SDG&E’s Generator Grant Program starts with an assessment by phone. We leave medical devices out of the calculator on purpose.
Keep you safe in serious heat. A fan costs little to run, but the CDC’s advice is to use fans only while the indoor temperature is below 90°F; above that, a fan can raise body temperature. In that kind of heat, the place to be is somewhere with air conditioning.

One thing a power station does better than a gas generator: it makes no exhaust, so it can sit indoors, as Consumer Reports points out. A gas generator must never run inside a home, basement or garage, or within 20 feet of a window, door or vent (CDC).

How we count

Each thing on the list counts as below. Where a source gives a range we take the side that keeps the lights on: the top of the federal EnergyGuide range for a fridge, so that an older one is covered, and a fan on high. On top of everything we add 15%, for what a station loses turning its battery into wall-socket power.

What	We count	On whose numbers
Mini fridge	901 Wh a day; 300 W while it runs	329 kWh a year, the top of the EnergyGuide range for compact fridges ($46 a year at 14 cents) (US Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Reports)
Standard fridge (about 18–21 cu ft)	1,408 Wh a day; 600 W while it runs	514 kWh a year, the top of the EnergyGuide range for an 18.5–20.4 cu ft top-freezer ($72) (US Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Reports, OutdoorGearLab)
Large fridge (side-by-side or French door)	2,271 Wh a day; 800 W while it runs	829 kWh a year, the top of the range for a 24.5–26.4 cu ft side-by-side with an ice dispenser ($116) (US Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Reports)
Chest freezer	921 Wh a day; 300 W while it runs	336 kWh a year, the top of the range for a 15.5–17.4 cu ft chest freezer ($47) (US Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Reports)
Starting a fridge or freezer	twice its running watts, for a moment	A fridge maker’s own advice: double the running watts for start-up (Amana)
Fan	75 W for each hour it runs	A 20-inch box fan, and a standard ceiling fan on high, each draw about 75 W (EPB (Chattanooga's electric utility))
Window air conditioner	545 W small (6,000 Btu) · 734 W medium (8,000) · 1,101 W large (12,000); three times that to start	Its size divided by the federal efficiency floor most units in homes were sold under (CEER 11.0 and 10.9, 2014–2026); motors take two to three times their running watts to start (US Department of Energy, SDG&E)
Portable air conditioner	922 W each; three times that to start	A one-room unit (6,000 Btu/h on the Department of Energy’s seasonal rating) at the federal efficiency floor for units made since January 10, 2025; an older one can draw more (NEEA (Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance), Natural Resources Canada, SDG&E)
Phone	20 Wh a day (one full charge); 20 W while it charges	An iPhone 17 battery holds 14.5 Wh, the largest current iPhone 19.8 Wh (Macworld)
Tablet	29 Wh a day; 20 W while it charges	An iPad (A16) battery holds 28.93 Wh (Apple)
Laptop	60 Wh a day (one full charge); 65 W while it charges	The middle ENERGY STAR laptop has a 60 Wh battery and a 65 W charger (our count of EPA’s data) (ENERGY STAR (US EPA))
TV	31 W up to 32″ · 69 W at 40–50″ · 119 W at 55–65″ · 141 W at 70″ and up, for 3 hours a day	The middle ENERGY STAR TV of each size (our count of EPA’s data); Americans watch 2.6 hours a day, which we round up (ENERGY STAR (US EPA), US Bureau of Labor Statistics)
Wi-Fi router and modem	18 W, around the clock	New modems average 9.3 W and routers 8.5 W (D+R International for the US small network equipment agreement)
LED bulb	10 W, 5 hours a day	A 60-watt-equivalent LED draws 5.9–10.5 W; the five hours are our own assumption (US Department of Energy (FEMP))
What the station loses	add 15% on top of everything	Tested stations delivered 80–87% of their rated capacity (OutdoorGearLab)
Solar panels	70% of the panel’s rating, for 4 hours of full sun a day	Panels made 56–91% of their rating in direct sun; most of the lower 48 gets 3 to 6 kWh of sun per square meter a day (a “sun-hour” each) (OutdoorGearLab, NREL (now the National Laboratory of the Rockies))

How sure: these are typical figures, not your own appliances. A fridge’s yellow EnergyGuide label or an old electric bill beats any table, and a newer fridge uses less than we count. The specs are each maker’s own; the prices are each store’s own, read on the day shown on the card.