Where Americans Need Backup Power Most: The 2026 Grid Backup Pressure Index

21.7% of U.S. households reported an outage lasting at least 24 hours in 2024. In parts of the South, the share was roughly one in three.

EIA’s preliminary 2024 Residential Energy Consumption Survey estimates that 28.72 million of 132.54 million occupied U.S. primary residences experienced at least one outage lasting 24 hours or longer.

The regional spread was large. West South Central—which includes Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana—had the highest reported prevalence at 33.5%. The South Atlantic was close behind at 30.1%.

Generator ownership provides a second signal. New England had the highest reported generator ownership among Census divisions at about 27.4%, even though its 2024 day-long-outage rate was below several Southern regions. That does not tell us why any particular household bought a generator, but it reinforces a practical point: people prepare based on more than the most recent year.

EIA separately reported that U.S. customers averaged about 11 hours without power in 2024, nearly twice the preceding decade’s annual average, with major events accounting for roughly 80% of outage hours. That makes 2024 an unusually severe comparison year rather than a normal annual baseline. EIA’s reliability analysis provides the national context.

The state ranking is a comparative baseline, not a verdict on whether an individual household needs backup. It measures five-year reliability pressure plus a smaller electricity-cost component.

To compare all 50 states on a common basis, we created the Solar Waypoint Grid Backup Pressure Score. The score uses three inputs:

• 60% — five-year outage duration: average state SAIDI from 2020 through 2024.
• 25% — outage frequency: average state SAIFI over the same period.
• 15% — residential electricity price: finalized 2024 state average.

SAIDI measures the annual minutes of sustained interruptions experienced by the average customer; SAIFI measures how often sustained interruptions occur. Each input is converted to a percentile before weighting, which limits the ability of one extreme raw value to dominate the score. The underlying reliability data comes from EIA’s state reliability tables, while the price component uses finalized 2024 residential electricity prices.

The ranking is most useful when read through its components. Louisiana has extraordinarily high five-year outage duration but relatively inexpensive electricity. Maine combines both outage pressure and higher prices. California sits much lower on historical outage duration while its electricity price is among the highest in the country.

A hurricane-prone home, a cold-weather rural home and a high-cost solar home may all justify serious backup for different reasons. Geography describes the risk; it does not prescribe one battery size.

The 50-state score is intentionally narrow. It does not try to assign numerical weights to hurricanes, wildfire shutoffs, private wells, electric heating or EV ownership. Those factors matter, but forcing all of them into one composite would make the index harder to defend rather than more useful.

The Gulf Coast and much of the South

The household data is especially striking here. West South Central and South Atlantic homes had the highest prevalence of 24+ hour outages in 2024. For households preparing for hurricanes and other extended regional disruptions, the central question is often not whether the battery can bridge a short interruption—it is whether stored energy can be replenished for days.

That makes expansion, solar input and fuel generation especially relevant. A battery can provide quiet immediate power, solar can recharge it when conditions cooperate, and a generator can add controllable energy when clouds, damage or high loads overwhelm solar production.

New England and Appalachia

New England combines high generator ownership with some of the country’s highest electricity prices. Storms, tree damage, winter conditions, private wells and electric heating can all increase the consequences of losing electricity. West Virginia separately stands out in the state reliability data with substantial sustained interruption time across multiple years.

Texas

Texas ranks sixth without any special adjustment. Its backup problem can involve hurricanes, extreme heat, winter cold and large household loads. Refrigeration and communications are relatively modest targets; central cooling or electric heating can move the problem into a completely different power class.

Florida and hurricane-exposed states

Florida ranks 17th in the composite, yet its worst annual average-customer outage total since 2014 reached about 41.7 hours. That does not mean one continuous 42-hour blackout. It shows how a severe year can make backup valuable even when routine statewide averages are less dramatic.

California and other high-cost markets

California ranks 24th in the Grid Backup Pressure Score, but its 2024 residential electricity price averaged 31.97¢/kWh, nearly twice the national average. Wildfire-related Public Safety Power Shutoffs, rooftop solar, EV adoption and time-of-use rates create a different case for storage—one built partly around resilience and partly around using the battery when the grid is working.

Food, water, communications and a small amount of heating or cooling can matter more than keeping every circuit energized. The critical loads define the system.

Food can become one of the first financial losses

USDA guidance says an unopened refrigerator generally keeps food safely cold for about four hours. A full freezer can generally maintain temperature for around 48 hours, while a half-full freezer may hold temperature for roughly 24 hours.

That makes refrigeration one of the easiest backup-power use cases to understand. A system does not have to run the entire house to protect something valuable. Keeping a refrigerator and stocked freezer operating through a prolonged outage can prevent a meaningful amount of food from being discarded.

Water can depend on electricity too

Millions of Americans rely on self-supplied domestic water, most commonly private wells. USGS estimates that 42.5 million people relied on self-supplied domestic water in its national 2015 assessment. For many of those homes, losing electricity can also stop the well pump.

A well pump may require substantially more output than a refrigerator or router, and some use 240V. That is why a small emergency power station can protect food and communications while still being completely inadequate for a home’s water system.

Heating and cooling can dominate the energy budget

The 2024 American Community Survey estimates that about 41.8% of occupied U.S. homes used electricity as their primary heating fuel. Whole-home electric heating and central air conditioning can require dramatically more power and energy than basic critical loads, especially during the weather extremes that often accompany outages.

Work, communications and property protection

Internet equipment, computers, phones, lighting and many security devices usually require far less energy than HVAC. Sump pumps, gates and other property-protection loads can be more demanding, but they can also prevent an outage from turning into a much larger loss.

More than half of the 134 systems we track meet our basic Essentials benchmark, but only about one-quarter combine the expansion, output and solar input we associate with extended-outage use.

Our current research universe includes 134 portable, modular and home-backup power systems with sufficient verified specifications for battery capacity, continuous inverter output and the charging metrics used here. Rather than labeling every product “home backup capable” or “not home backup capable,” we use four transparent Power Station Fit benchmarks.

Essentials Backup — 73 systems, 54.5%

Benchmark: at least 1 kWh of base battery capacity and 1.8 kW continuous AC output. This class is relevant to refrigeration, communications, computers, lighting and appropriate combinations of smaller 120V loads. Actual runtime and starting requirements still depend on the equipment.

Critical-Load Backup — 42 systems, 31.3%

Benchmark: at least 2 kWh of base capacity and 2.4 kW continuous output. The extra storage and output make this a substantially stronger critical-load class, but pumps, HVAC and motor loads still require individual verification.

Extended-Outage Platform — 36 systems, 26.9%

Benchmark: at least 5 kWh of supported maximum battery capacity, 2.4 kW continuous output and 800W maximum solar input. This is where storage expansion and replenishment begin to matter as much as the energy initially sitting in the battery.

Long-Outage Resilience — 24 systems, 17.9%

Benchmark: at least 10 kWh of supported maximum capacity, 3 kW continuous output and 1,000W maximum solar input. A stricter sensitivity test using 10 kWh, 3.6 kW and 1,200W solar still leaves 21 systems, suggesting the conclusion is not dependent on one narrow cutoff.

Readers who want to explore the underlying products can use our portable power station directory. For market-wide context, see State of Portable Power Stations 2026.

A battery is a reservoir. Solar panels and generators are energy sources. During a multi-day event, the way energy gets back into storage can matter as much as starting capacity.

During a short outage, the energy already stored in a battery may be all that matters. During a multi-day disruption, the problem changes. A household can either reduce consumption, add more storage, replenish the battery—or combine all three.

Solar can stretch stored energy

Solar can recharge compatible systems whenever enough sunlight is available. But the maximum solar-input rating is only a ceiling: actual production depends on weather, season, panel orientation, location and how much panel area is available.

Fuel generation can complement batteries

Fuel generators remain useful precisely because they can create additional energy on demand. In a hybrid setup, the battery can handle immediate and quiet loads while the generator runs intermittently to replenish storage or cover high demand. Some manufacturers now offer generators that communicate with compatible power systems and can start automatically as battery charge falls.

That makes batteries, solar and fuel generation complementary rather than competing strategies. For a long hurricane, ice storm or other regional disruption, the combination can be more practical than trying to buy enough battery capacity to cover every hour without replenishment.

Voltage and home integration remain separate questions

Battery size still does not answer whether the system can run a 240V well pump, central air conditioner, electric range or EV charger. Some modern platforms provide native 120/240V output; others require pairing hardware or multiple stations. Whole-home circuits may also require a transfer switch, smart panel or other approved integration equipment. Our power station transfer-switch and home-integration guide explains the practical connection options in more detail.

Backup equipment does not always have to be financially idle until the next outage. In high-cost markets, a battery may also support solar self-consumption or shift grid use away from expensive periods.

In 2024, residential electricity averaged 42.86¢/kWh in Hawaii, 31.97¢ in California, 29.35¢ in Massachusetts and 28.75¢ in Connecticut, compared with a U.S. average of 16.48¢. EIA’s finalized state prices show how dramatically the economics vary by location.

Those statewide averages still do not capture time-of-use tariffs. In some utility territories, electricity costs more during high-demand periods. A battery can potentially charge from surplus solar or during lower-cost hours and discharge during more expensive periods while preserving some capacity for emergencies.

That does not mean load shifting will pay for the system. The economics depend on the tariff, solar production, battery cost, cycling strategy and reserve setting. The more energy held back for an unexpected outage, the less is available for routine bill management.

California is a good example of a dual-purpose battery market

California’s statewide outage duration is far below Maine’s, but electricity is much more expensive and utilities may use time-of-use pricing. The state also uses Public Safety Power Shutoffs when wildfire conditions make de-energization the safer option in affected areas.

A California battery can therefore serve several roles: everyday solar and tariff management, ordinary outage backup, and reserve power during a planned wildfire shutoff. That is why a state need not rank near the top for historical outage duration to support a strong home-storage market.

An outage can interrupt transportation as well as the house—but compatible bidirectional EVs can also become some of the largest batteries on the property.

EIA estimates that about 6 million U.S. households owned or leased an EV or plug-in hybrid in 2024, and roughly 4.7 million charged one at home. In the Pacific division, EV/PHEV ownership and home charging were substantially more common than the national average.

A sufficiently capable backup system may provide some emergency charging to an EV, although draining a modest home battery to refill a much larger vehicle battery is rarely an efficient primary strategy.

The reverse direction is more interesting. DOE describes bidirectional charging as a way for compatible EVs to support buildings or selected loads. Light-duty EV batteries can span roughly 15–100 kWh, potentially making the vehicle one of the largest energy-storage assets at the home.

Not every EV supports vehicle-to-home operation, and compatible charging and home-integration hardware is required. But as transportation electrifies, home resilience and vehicle energy storage are increasingly connected.

On remote properties, solar, batteries and supplemental generation may be an alternative to extending the grid rather than a backup to it.

Most households buy backup because utility electricity is already available. Remote rural properties can face a different calculation: if extending service is technically difficult or prohibitively expensive, an independent energy system may make more sense.

A typical architecture combines solar for primary daytime generation, batteries for nights and low-production periods, supplemental fuel generation for long cloudy stretches or unusual demand, and load management to keep consumption within the system’s limits.

Current federal projects illustrate the concept. DOE describes a Native Renewables project that plans off-grid solar-plus-storage systems for up to 300 Hopi and Navajo homes that currently lack electricity.

The economics are extremely site-specific, so there is no useful national “cost per foot” for utility extension. The more important point is that the same technologies sold as backup equipment can also form a primary household electrical system.

The evidence does not show that every state’s reliability will steadily worsen. It does show increasing weather stress, aging infrastructure in parts of the grid and rapidly growing electricity demand.

The Fifth National Climate Assessment reports that major U.S. outages affecting more than 50,000 customers occurred roughly 64% more often from 2011–2021 than during 2000–2010. It also documents increasing extreme heat and heavy precipitation across large portions of the country and identifies severe weather, extreme cold, tropical cyclones, wildfire and flooding as threats to energy infrastructure.

Utilities are also investing heavily in resilience, vegetation management, transmission, storage, undergrounding and restoration. The evidence does not support describing the U.S. grid as simply “collapsing.”

But the system is being asked to handle changing conditions. A 2024 Department of Energy report notes that about 70% of U.S. transmission lines are more than 25 years old. Meanwhile, NERC’s latest long-term assessment forecasts more than 224 GW of additional summer peak demand and 245 GW of additional winter peak demand over the coming decade across North America.

NOAA’s historical Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters archive recorded 403 U.S. events from 1980 through 2024. The full-period average was 9 events per year, compared with 23 per year during 2020–2024. Those counts are influenced by development, property values and exposure as well as weather, so they should not be treated as a direct outage forecast. They provide an independent historical view of large disruptive events.

Taken together, the evidence suggests a careful conclusion: households are becoming more dependent on electricity while parts of the electrical system face aging infrastructure, increasing demand and substantial weather exposure. That keeps resilience relevant even as the grid itself continues to modernize.