Home Backup Power UK: How to Keep the Lights On During a Power Cut
Updated: 2 days ago
What do you actually need to back up?
The goal isn’t powering everything, it’s keeping the household functional until the grid comes back:
Broadband router and phones (staying connected): routers draw 10–20W; mobiles another few watts. A 1500Wh station will run both for days if that’s all you’re powering.
Fridge/freezer (protecting food): the compressor cycles, expect 100–200W when running, totalling roughly 1–2kWh across a full day depending on how often the door is opened. Most portable power stations handle fridges comfortably.
LED lighting: a modern LED bulb draws 8–12W. Even running three lamps all evening barely dents a mid-sized battery.
Gas boiler controls and heating pump: the control board itself is low-draw (often under 50W), but if you have a condensing boiler with a circulation pump, check the combined draw, it can be 100–200W when the pump is running.
Medical equipment (CPAP, oxygen concentrators, nebulisers): check the nameplate, most CPAPs sit around 30–60W, but concentrators can pull 300W+. If you or a household member depends on medical equipment, prioritise capacity and consult the manufacturer’s guidance on backup power.
What size power station do you need?
The right size depends on which appliances you’re backing up and for how long. Peak (start-up) loads matter too: a fridge compressor or pump can briefly draw two to three times its running wattage when it first kicks in, so always check the peak output rating of any power station alongside its capacity.
Essentials only (1000–1500Wh): Router, phones, a couple of lights and intermittent fridge use will get you through an evening or overnight outage, enough for the vast majority of UK blackouts.
Extended outage (2000Wh+): Fridge/freezer running continuously, plus router, lights and heating controls for 12–24 hours. Add solar panels and you can recharge during daylight to extend that further.
Whole-day / multi-day resilience (expandable systems): Units like the EcoFlow Delta Pro accept add-on batteries and serious solar input, the choice if you have medical equipment or simply want genuine resilience rather than managed disruption.
Work out your exact requirements
Before choosing a power station for home backup, use the free Fred & Ellis Power Calculator to work out exactly how much capacity you need. Enter your devices and typical usage, it takes about two minutes and tells you which power station size will actually cover your needs.
Recommended home backup setups
EcoFlow DELTA 3 Classic — essentials backup
The EcoFlow DELTA 3 Classic is a solid entry point for essentials backup. The standout feature is recharge speed: mains-to-full in under two hours, so you can top it up fast when a storm warning hits the forecast. At 1024Wh, it covers a router, phones, LED lighting and intermittent fridge use through an overnight outage without difficulty. It also accepts solar input and expandable batteries if your requirements grow.
Bluetti AC200L — LiFePO4 chemistry for longer battery life
Bluetti’s AC200L and other LiFePO4-based units are built around lithium iron phosphate cells rated for 3,000+ charge cycles, roughly four to five times the cycle life of standard lithium-ion. If you want a backup battery that will still be performing reliably in ten years, this chemistry makes sound long-term sense. The AC200L delivers 2048Wh and 2400W continuous output, which covers most household essentials including boiler controls and pump loads without issue.
EcoFlow Delta Pro — expandable multi-day resilience
The EcoFlow Delta Pro is the serious option for multi-day or whole-home essentials backup. It accepts add-on batteries (up to 25kWh with Smart Extra Batteries), handles 1600W of solar input, and scales to genuine grid-independent resilience for extended outages. Read our EcoFlow Delta Pro Review UK for a full breakdown of the trade-offs, including weight, cost and whether the expandability is genuinely necessary for most UK households.
Whichever you choose, keep it charged year-round and know in advance which appliances you’ll plug in and in what order. The middle of a blackout, torches out, kids asking questions, is not the time to work out whether your fridge plug will fit or how long the router will last.
The role of solar in home backup
For a six-hour outage, a fully charged power station is all you need, just keep it topped up and ready to go. For longer or repeated cuts, pairing it with solar panels means you can recharge during daylight hours and extend runtime indefinitely in favourable conditions. The honest limitation: UK winter solar is weak. In December, a 200W panel in the north of England may produce two to three useful hours of meaningful output per day, helpful as a supplement, not a solution. Size your battery for worst-case conditions and treat solar as a welcome top-up. For a full guide to solar-compatible setups, see our Best Solar Generators UK 2025 guide.
Why not a petrol generator?
Petrol generators deliver more watts per pound spent, but they’re loud, can’t be run indoors (carbon monoxide risk), need fuel you have to store and rotate, and produce dirty power that can damage sensitive electronics. A lithium power station is silent, safe to run in your kitchen or hallway, needs zero maintenance between outages, and plugs in to top itself up. For most UK households, where power cuts are infrequent and unpredictable, a lithium power station is the more practical choice, even if the per-watt cost is higher.
Who this guide is NOT for
If you need multi-day whole-home backup, a portable power station can cover essential loads for 24–48 hours with the right capacity, but a permanently installed home battery system (such as Tesla Powerwall or Powervault) is the correct solution for uninterrupted whole-home power over multiple days.
If you rely on medical equipment that cannot tolerate any interruption, portable power stations are not certified medical devices; consult the manufacturer and your clinician before depending on one for life-critical equipment.
If you’re looking to cut electricity bills, home battery systems for energy arbitrage (storing cheap overnight electricity to use during peak tariff periods) are a different product category with different economics. A portable power station is optimised for backup, not for bill reduction.
Work out your exact requirements
Not sure what size you need? The Fred & Ellis Power Calculator works it out in around two minutes.
Where to buy
Pricing shifts weekly, especially around sale events — we link directly to UK retailers so you always see live availability and current offers:
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