According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA),
customers throughout the states experienced over eight hours of electric power interruptions in 2020 and in 2021, just over seven.
But that is just the average for the entire country. On average, states such as Louisiana experienced over eighty hours of power outages.
Most of these blackouts are caused by extreme weather events such as hurricanes, wildfires, and winter storms.
All these events can destroy power lines or disrupt electricity generation, and depending on the severity of the cause, damage can take hours to be repaired.
Extreme weather events that result in widespread blackouts do occur. Take the tornado outbreak that moved across the USA from Texas to Maine, for example. This disaster left 6.8 million people without an electrical supply.
Or take the longest blackout in U.S. history, for example, caused by Hurricane Maria in 2017. This extreme weather event left hundreds of thousands of people in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands without power for more than 100 days!
The point we are trying to make is that emergencies do happen. And when they do, you should come prepared.
This article highlights the 3 best emergency solar generators equipped to supply you with enough power to get through any power outage.
How Much Electricity Do You Need?
In any emergency scenario, there is a hierarchy of needs that will need attending to. For example, safety should be your primary cause of focus. After that things such as food and water need to be attended to.
This article doesn't touch base on these things. It assumes you have made the necessary preparations for any potential emergency scenario and are now looking to finalize your energy solution during such an event.
If you are looking to learn how you should prepare for an emergency situation such as a hurricane passing through your state, we recommend you read Ready.Gov
When it comes to the amount of energy required during an emergency event, it all comes down to your individual needs.
In order to help you decide on which emergency solar generator is best equipped for your needs, we need to calculate how much electricity you would require during a power outrage.
Grab a pen and paper and make a list like the one below:
| Appliance | Wattage | Run Time (Hours) | Wh |
| Refrigerator | 200 | 10 | 2000 |
| LED Lights x 5 | 25 | 10 | 250 |
| Electric Grill | 1000 | 1 | 1000 |
| Rechargeable Flashlight | 10 | 10 | 100 |
| Handheld Radio | 10 | 10 | 100 |
| Total | 1245 W | N/A | 3,450 Wh |
Now, what have we done above?
Well it is pretty simple, we have created a list of the appliance we would like powered during a power. Next we have jotted down their individual power draw or wattage. This can usually be found on a label on the back of the appliance.
Next, we have jotted down how long we would like each of these appliances to run. Finally, we multiplied the wattage by the run time to figure out how much energy capacity would be required to power all these appliances for said time.
(Please note that refrigerators are generally rated at more than 200 watts. However, you must consider that they cycle on and off throughout the day as opposed to running continuously. Simply divide your refrigerators total wattage by 3 to get a more accurate indicator of its power requirements.)
Our energy requirements is a total of 3,450 Wh.
This means that we will need to insure our chosen solar generator has the same or (ideally) greater energy capacity.
Below we highlight the 3 best emergency solar generators you can buy at BLUETTI.
3 Best Emergency Solar Generators
AC200 MAX + B300
First up we have the popular BLUETTI AC200 MAX. This is one of our smaller emergency solar generators, with a standard energy capacity of 2,048 Wh.
As you would note from our table above, this would not be sufficient energy capacity to meet our demands.
However, the AC200 MAX allows for external battery pack connection. By connecting the two B300's you will increase the energy capacity up to 8,192 Wh.
BATTERY INFO
OUTPUT
INPUT
RECHARGE TIME
GENERAL
EP500 Pro
The EP500 Pro is one of the first emergency home backup power stations that we released. As is, it comes with a whopping 5,100 Wh of energy capacity. That's over double the AC200 MAX.
The EP500 Pro is best for those who are only looking to power the most important household items during a power outage emergency.
Again, if you refer to the table we created above, you will notice that 5100 Wh is more than enough to power our essential items for an extended period of time.
General Information
Input Specs
Output Specs
AC300 + X4 B300
The AC300 is one of the most versatile emergency solar generators on the market today. By nature, this model is entirely modular. Meaning in order to store energy, you will need to connect external B300 battery packs to the AC300. Standalone, the AC300 is not able to store any energy.
At first glance you are probably asking yourself why we would build such a machine.
Well the answer is simple, it has massive energy storage capabilities. At full power, the AC300 connected to x4 B300 battery packs has an energy capacity of 12,228 Wh!
If we were to build a machine of this capacity as one unit, it would be incredibly hard to manoeuvre around.
