A Tiered Solar-Plus-Battery Emergency Kit for Power Outages

Our block lost power at 4:47 on a February evening two years ago, right as freezing rain started welding branches to power lines. The furnace fell silent, the fridge ticked once and went dark, and my partner asked the only question that actually mattered: “How long can we run the CPAP tonight?” I keep a small solar-plus-battery kit in the hall closet for exactly that moment, and it has grown up in stages as I learned what really gets used in a real outage.

Why I stopped shopping for one big box

Most people I talk to start by pricing out a single giant battery that will “run the house.” Then they see the numbers, get overwhelmed, and buy nothing. A tiered kit is cheaper to start, easier to carry, and matches the way outages actually escalate: an hour, then twelve hours, then three days.

I think of it as three layers stacked in the closet, each one taking over when the smaller layer runs dry.

Tier 1: a 100 to 300 Wh personal go-bag

This is the layer that leaves the house. A unit like the Jackery Explorer 100 Plus (99 Wh), Anker 521 (256 Wh), or EcoFlow River 2 (256 Wh) weighs 3 to 8 pounds and costs roughly $150 to $300. Pair it with a small 40W to 100W folding panel and you have a self-contained kit that fits under an airline seat.

What that actually powers: a modern phone charges 8 to 20 times, a Starlink Mini for a couple of hours, LED headlamps essentially forever, a CPAP on humidifier-off setting for roughly one full night. It will not run a fridge, a microwave, or a space heater, and it should never try.

Tier 2: 500 to 1500 Wh for household essentials

This is the layer I reach for during a normal Pacific Northwest windstorm outage. Solid options include the EcoFlow Delta 2 (1,024 Wh), the Jackery Explorer 1000 v2 (1,070 Wh), and the Bluetti AC180 (1,152 Wh). Expect to pay $500 to $1,200 depending on sales, and expect 20 to 40 pounds of weight.

Combined with a 200W folding panel (the Jackery SolarSaga 200 and EcoFlow 220W bifacial are the two I have actually handled), a Tier 2 kit will keep a fridge cycling, a router and laptop running, a few LED lights on, and phones topped up for roughly a day and a half on battery alone. Add a sunny afternoon and you extend that meaningfully.

Look for LiFePO4 chemistry (LFP). It runs cooler, lasts 3,000+ cycles instead of 500, and tolerates being left plugged in for months at a time.

Tier 3: 2000 Wh and up for fridge, medical, and multi-day outages

If someone in the house depends on a nebulizer, oxygen concentrator, insulin refrigeration, or a powered wheelchair, Tier 3 becomes the primary system, not a luxury. The EcoFlow Delta Pro (3,600 Wh), Jackery 2000 Plus (2,042 Wh, expandable), and Bluetti AC200Max (2,048 Wh) sit in this class. Prices run from about $1,500 to over $3,000, and a single unit weighs 60 to 100 pounds.

A 400W+ array (four 100W folding panels or two 200W panels) makes this tier viable for multi-day outages. In an all-day cloudy Portland winter I might only see 30% to 50% of rated output, which is exactly why I oversize.

What to plug in, in what order

Priorities I set with anyone I help:

• Life-sustaining medical devices first. CPAP, oxygen concentrator, insulin fridge, dialysis pumps. Know your device’s actual watt draw, not the nameplate. My CPAP pulls about 12W without humidifier and roughly 40W with it on.
• Communication. Phones, a small NOAA weather radio, one router if you rely on cellular home internet. Combined draw usually under 30W.
• Refrigeration. A modern ENERGY STAR fridge uses roughly 1 to 1.5 kWh per day if you keep the door closed. Cycle it for 20 minutes every couple of hours rather than running continuously if battery is tight.
• One good light per person. A rechargeable lantern beats candles for households with kids or pets.
• Warmth for the body, not the room. Electric blankets pull 60 to 100W and heat a person. Space heaters pull 1,500W and will empty any portable battery in under an hour.

The DOE’s power outage preparedness guide and Ready.gov’s outage checklist are the two lists I hand people first.

A worked example from that ice storm

Our 48-hour outage in February looked like this on the Tier 2 unit I had at the time:

The 1,024 Wh battery covered day one comfortably. On day two, a two-hour break in the clouds and a 200W folding panel on the porch railing put back roughly 250 Wh. It was enough. If the outage had stretched into day three with no sun, the fridge would have been the first load I dropped.

What goes wrong

The failures I see are almost never about picking the wrong brand.

Dead-on-arrival batteries

LiFePO4 self-discharges slowly, but a battery that sat in the garage for a year at 20% state of charge can be unusable when you need it. I set a calendar reminder for the first Sunday of every quarter to top mine off. Two minutes of maintenance.

Trying to run resistive heat

A 1,500W ceramic heater will drain a 1,000 Wh battery in roughly 30 to 40 minutes, and it will trip the inverter’s overload protection on many units. Sweaters and electric blankets, not room heaters.

Panel expectations in the Pacific Northwest

A 200W panel in bright July sun on a stand at the right angle can hit 170W. That same panel flat on a picnic table under Portland’s marine layer in January might make 30W. Winter output is a fraction, not a full number, and it is the exact season you need it. The NREL PVWatts calculator is a sober reality check before you commit.

Cold and cable losses

LFP batteries do not want to be charged below about 32°F. Keep the unit inside and only run cables out to the panel. A cheap 25-foot extension cord from a panel across the yard can lose 5% to 10% of the incoming power to resistance.

Where I would spend $600 today

If someone in Portland asked me for a starter kit at that budget, I would spend it like this: a 1,000 Wh LFP power station on a sale (roughly $450 to $500), one 200W folding panel ($150 to $200), and the leftover on a small NOAA radio, two USB-rechargeable lanterns, and a good outdoor-rated extension cord. It is not glamorous, it is not Tier 3, but it will carry most Pacific Northwest families through the outages that actually happen here.

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