Start here: backup power without the jargon
A power station is a big rechargeable battery with outlets. It runs your important things when the grid fails, silently and indoors, for hours to a couple of days depending on size. Solar panels refill it. That is the entire category; everything else is sizing.
The five words that unlock everything
- Watt: how fast power is being used right now.
- Watt hour: an amount of energy. Batteries are sized in these.
- Usable capacity: about 85 percent of the printed battery size, after conversion losses.
- Duty cycle: the share of the hour an appliance actually runs. A fridge averages about 40 percent.
- Surge: the brief spike a motor draws when it starts. It decides whether pumps work at all.
Three questions that route you
1. What has to keep running?
Just a fridge, lights, and phones points to the portable class. A sump pump adds the surge question. A furnace, a well pump, or a whole panel points to whole-home backup.
2. How long are your outages?
Run your loads through the runtime calculator. Hours of coverage come from battery size. Days of coverage come from battery size plus panels, sized by this guide.
3. What is your budget, honestly counted?
Compare systems, not boxes, on the cost per usable watt hour table, then read the buying mistakes page before any checkout.
The one warning we give every friend
Never backfeed a house panel through an outlet or a homemade cord. It endangers utility crews and it is illegal in most places. The safe ways in are a transfer switch or plain extension cords, compared here.