Energy Planner

The USDA gives a closed fridge about 4 hours once the power drops, and a full freezer 48 hours (24 if half full). After that the meat, fish, eggs and leftovers go in the trash. A typical fridge uses about 1.2 kWh a day, so a 1 kWh station carries it roughly a day and a 3 kWh station two to three. A medication fridge draws half a kWh a day; even a small station keeps insulin and biologics cold for days.

A gust, a lightning strike, a falling albizia, a car into a pole: acts of God take lines down across a whole island at once, and no utility or agency can undo that in an afternoon. Crews restore hospitals, water pumps and substations first; ordinary streets come last. The county opens shelters; it does not bring your fridge back. Iselle left parts of Puna dark for about five weeks in 2014. After Iniki, Kauaʻi neighborhoods waited months. Thousands on Hawaiʻi Island were still without power days after Lala this August. By the first afternoon the ice is gone from every store and the fuel lines run around the block. What you already have at home is what you have.

Current stations use lithium iron phosphate cells rated for 3,000 to 6,000 full charge-and-drain cycles while still holding 80% of their capacity: a full cycle every single day for eight to sixteen years. Used for outages and a top-up every few months, it ages out of the calendar (about ten years) long before it wears out. Most carry a five-year warranty, and unlike a generator there is nothing to service and no fuel going stale.

A Pecron F3000LFP at $849 over ten years is $7 a month, less than one fridge of spoiled groceries. It runs indoors, silently, with no fumes and no gas can in the garage. And on the other 364 days it is a UPS for the router, the camping battery, and a way to charge things off the most expensive electricity in the country.