Generator or battery? Your state's outage record decides it

Q: How long does the power actually stay off?

In 2024 the average U.S. customer lost 11 hours of electricity across the year, and the average single interruption ran about 7 hours. Take the major storm days out and the year's total falls to 2.2 hours. The spread between states is enormous: South Carolina averaged 52.6 hours in 2024, the District of Columbia half an hour. Those are EIA figures from the Electric Power Annual, Table 11.2, data for 2024.

Q: Battery or generator?

A battery station covers the outages most households actually get: a few hours, once or twice a year, with no fuel, no noise and no exhaust, which is the only option in an apartment. A generator earns its keep where the storm tail is long, and only where you have somewhere outdoors to run it at least 20 feet from windows, doors and attached garages, which Ready.gov requires. The calculator on this page uses your state's own numbers to say which case you are in.

Q: Why can a battery not run my heater?

Because heat is the most expensive thing electricity does. A small space heater pulls around 1,500 watts, so a 1,000 watt-hour battery runs it for about 40 minutes. The same battery runs a fridge, the phones, the router and a few lights for most of a day. Anything that makes heat or cold with a coil or a compressor is a generator job, or a job for blankets.

the count

What your state loses, and what your house needs

The left half of this is federal record: how many hours your state's customers lost in 2024, how often, and how long one interruption ran. The right half is arithmetic on your own house. Pick what you would keep alive and the tool tells you the watt-hours, which is the only number that matters when you compare a battery to a battery.

Your state 2024 figures from the federal Electric Power Annual. Picking a state fills in the hours below with that state's typical single outage.

Hours you want to cover Starts at your state's typical outage. Double it if you want a margin, or set it to 48 for storm country.

Keep the fridge cold? Counted at 150 W on the label, running about a third of the time, which is the rule the Department of Energy gives.

Phones and a laptop Each phone counted at 15 watt-hours a day, a laptop at 60. Our estimate. A phone's own battery is printed in its settings.

The rest of it Lights are LED at 30 W total. Router and modem 15 W. Box fan 60 W. A small space heater is 1,500 W and it is on this list to show you what it does.

Battery you have or are pricing, in watt-hours Printed on the box as Wh. Common sizes: 300, 500, 1,000, 2,000, 3,000.

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hours your state lost in 2024

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a typical single outage

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watt-hours your list needs

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hours that battery covers

Your state, all events

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Same state, storms removed

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What the battery covers

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Outage figures: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Annual, Table 11.2, reliability metrics by state using the IEEE method, data for 2024, released 16 October 2025. File read 11 September 2026. "All events" includes the major storm days. The second line is the same year with those days removed. Watts are our own starting estimates and you should replace them with what is printed on your own equipment: the Department of Energy notes the wattage is stamped on the back or bottom of an appliance, and that a fridge runs about a third of the time rather than continuously. Battery makers rate capacity before conversion losses. Assume you get less than the label.

the rule, in three lines

When each machine is the right machine

A battery, almost always, first. It works indoors, it makes no exhaust and no noise, it needs no fuel that goes stale, and it covers the outage the average household actually gets. It is also the only one of the two that an apartment can own: Ready.gov's rule is that a generator runs outdoors and at least twenty feet from windows, doors and attached garages, and no balcony in the country meets that.

A generator, when the tail is long and you have the ground for it. If your state's number with storms included is many times its number without them, you do not have an electricity problem, you have a hurricane problem, and the events that matter run for days rather than hours. No battery you can carry covers three days of a fridge. Fuel, a place to run it far from the house, and a carbon monoxide detector on every level are the price of entry.

Neither, for heat. Look at what the space heater does to the numbers above. Electric heat is the one job where a battery is hopeless and a small generator is barely better. Warmth in an outage comes from layers, one closed room, and leaving the building if it gets dangerous.

The three lines are our judgement. The hours, the frequencies and the twenty feet are not. They carry their sources above.

all fifty states and the district

Hours without power in 2024, worst to best

Two numbers per state, because the difference between them is the story. The first includes the major storm days. The second is the same year with those days taken out, which is roughly what a normal year feels like. The last column is the share of that state's customers the report actually covers, and where it is low the number above it is a hint rather than a measurement.

State	Hours lost, all events	Storms removed	Outages a year	Customers covered

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Annual, Table 11.2 (IEEE method), data for 2024, released 16 Oct 2025. Read 11 Sept 2026. Minutes converted to hours. A state average covers a whole grid: a rural line at the end of a long feeder and a downtown block on buried cable live in different worlds inside the same number.

somebody ran both

A cheap generator against an expensive battery, measured

We own neither machine, so we have no test to show you. The most useful comparison we found is by The Solar Lab, who runs a two hundred dollar petrol generator against a two thousand dollar power station and counts what each actually delivers. It is their work, shown here with their embed enabled. The credit and the link go to them.

Video by a creator we don't own

"Which is Cheaper? $200 Gas Generator vs $2,000 Power Station" by The Solar Lab on YouTube. Their test, their equipment and their conclusions, not ours, and prices in the video are from when it was filmed. Watch it on YouTube for the rest of their backup power testing.

Embed this calculator on your site

Free to use, including on a .gov or .edu page. The tool carries our name and the source of every number inside it, and it updates here when the federal data updates, so the copy on your page never goes stale.

Paste this where you want it:

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Height 1650px fits the tool with the tables closed. Something looks wrong on your page? Tell us and we will fix it here.

water, food and power at homefree guides and calculators, read in any order

i.How much water your house needs, and the Water Freedom System review
ii.Rain barrel calculator, by state
iii.48 hours without power: a small apartment's quiet plan
iv.A 30-day pantry, priced with this month's numbers
v.Generator vs. battery: what your state's outages say
vi.Water from air, explained by the humidity where you live
vii.This week's drought map, and your plan on top of it
viii.Filter, treat, test: making stored water drinkable
ix.The blackout kit you already own

Next: water pulled from the air, judged by the humidity where you live.See what your air holds →

straight answers

Questions people ask

How long does the power actually stay off?

In 2024 the average U.S. customer lost 11 hours across the year, and a single interruption ran about 7 hours on average. Remove the major storm days and the year's total drops to 2.2 hours. Between states the spread is enormous: South Carolina averaged 52.6 hours, the District of Columbia half an hour.

Battery or generator?

A battery covers what most households actually get, works indoors, and needs no fuel. A generator is for the storm tail, and only where you have somewhere outdoors to run it at least twenty feet from windows, doors and attached garages, which rules out every apartment. The calculator uses your state's own record to say which case you are in.

Why can a battery not run my heater?

A small space heater draws about 1,500 watts, so a 1,000 watt-hour battery gives you roughly forty minutes of it. The same battery runs a fridge, the phones, the router and some lights for most of a day. Heat is the one job to plan for with blankets and one closed room instead.

How accurate are these state numbers?

They are as good as the utilities' own reporting, and the table shows how much of each state was covered. Maine and Connecticut report essentially everyone; Hawaii reports 7 percent, Vermont 10 percent, Alabama 16 percent. Where coverage is thin, read the number as a hint. We show the coverage beside every figure for that reason.

What about a whole-house standby generator?

It is a different purchase with a different question attached, since it involves a permit, an electrician and a transfer switch, and it only makes sense for a house you own in a state with a long tail. The number on this page that should drive that conversation is the first one: how many hours your state actually lost, and how much of that was one bad week.

Last updated: 11 September 2026. Outage figures are federal data for 2024 with the source shown. Wattages are our estimates and yours will differ.

How we stay honest: the outage figures are public federal data with the release date and the date we read them. The wattages are our own starting estimates and say so. The rule for choosing is our judgement and says so. The safety rule about running a generator outdoors comes from Ready.gov and is not ours to soften. The video belongs to the creator credited above, and nothing here is electrical or safety engineering advice for your specific home.