State of Home Backup Power in America 2026

Roughly one in five U.S. households experienced a power outage lasting at least 24 hours in 2024. The year was unusually severe, but it shows why household backup is about exposure to long interruptions—not just the national average.

The national average can make power outages sound less disruptive than they really are.

U.S. Energy Information Administration data shows that electricity customers experienced about 11 hours without power in 2024, nearly twice the average annual interruption time during the previous decade. Major events—including hurricanes—accounted for about 80% of those outage hours.

That made 2024 an unusually bad year. Outages unrelated to major events have historically averaged much less, so the 11-hour figure should not be treated as a normal annual baseline.

But EIA’s 2024 Residential Energy Consumption Survey shows why the resilience issue extends beyond averages. It estimates that 28.72 million of 132.54 million occupied U.S. primary residences experienced at least one outage lasting 24 hours or longer. That works out to 21.7% of households.

That is a more useful way to think about household backup than the national average alone. Backup equipment is rarely purchased because someone expects exactly 11 hours without electricity each year. It is purchased because an occasional outage can last long enough to spoil food, interrupt remote work, disable a well pump or medical equipment, shut down heating or cooling, and make an otherwise functional home difficult to occupy.

The risk is also highly uneven. A household that experiences few interruptions for years may have little reason to invest heavily in backup equipment. Another home exposed to hurricanes, wildfire shutoffs, ice storms or a less reliable distribution network can face a very different calculation.

About 20.3% of U.S. homes reported a portable or whole-home/standby generator in 2024. Batteries are growing quickly, but fuel-powered backup remains deeply established.

EIA estimates that 20.26 million homes had a portable generator in 2024, while another 6.61 million had a whole-home or standby generator. Together, those categories represent about 20.3% of occupied U.S. primary residences.

That is an important reality check for a battery-heavy market discussion. Generators are not suddenly disappearing, and they solve a different problem. A battery has a fixed amount of stored energy. Solar panels can replenish it during an outage, but production depends on available sunlight and the amount of solar connected to the system. A fuel generator can keep producing energy as long as fuel remains available.

Increasingly, those technologies can work together rather than forcing homeowners to choose one or the other. A battery system can handle routine outages quietly, provide immediate power when the grid fails and recharge from solar during the day. A generator can be reserved for longer emergencies, poor solar conditions or periods of unusually high energy use.

Home backup is therefore becoming less about finding one universally superior technology and more about combining energy storage, generation and electrical integration in a way that fits the home.

Battery storage was paired with 37% of new residential PV installations in Berkeley Lab’s 2025 dataset, up from 25% a year earlier.

Rooftop solar and home batteries are increasingly being installed as one system rather than two separate upgrades.

Berkeley Lab’s 2026 distributed solar and storage update covers roughly 5.3 million U.S. systems installed through the end of 2025. Among new residential solar installations, the share paired with battery storage increased from 25% in 2024 to 37% in 2025.

The change was especially pronounced in California, where storage attachment rose from 58% to 74%. But California was not the whole story. Across the other states represented in the comparison, attachment increased from 7% to 17%.

Still, the direction is clear. For homeowners already considering solar, backup power is increasingly part of the original system design rather than something necessarily added years later.

Median residential battery capacity stayed at 13.5 kWh from 2024 to 2025, while median maximum discharge power increased from 6.0 to 11.4 kW—a 90% jump.

Battery capacity gets most of the attention in home-backup discussions, but Berkeley Lab’s newest data shows why power output deserves equal attention.

Kilowatt-hours describe how much energy is available. Kilowatts describe how quickly that energy can be delivered.

A larger inverter can support more simultaneous demand: refrigerators, pumps, kitchen appliances, air conditioners and other loads all compete for available output when they run at the same time. Adding battery capacity can extend runtime, but it does not automatically increase the amount of equipment that can operate simultaneously.

Berkeley Lab attributes much of the 2025 increase to newer high-output equipment, particularly the Tesla Powerwall 3. Its storage-sizing data is primarily based on California installations—roughly 80% of the available observations—so that concentration should be kept in mind.

The installed-battery market therefore made an important leap in 2025 even though its median storage capacity barely moved. Batteries became considerably more capable of behaving like whole-home power sources.

26 of 134 current systems we track can scale to at least 13.5 kWh. Portable and modular platforms increasingly overlap installed home batteries on energy capacity, even though their electrical capabilities can differ substantially.

The line between a portable power station and a home energy-storage system has become increasingly difficult to draw.

Small power stations still exist, including models designed primarily for camping, electronics and short emergency use. But the upper end of the market now includes large inverters, stackable batteries, 120/240V output and hardware for connecting directly to household circuits. Our current home-backup research universe includes 134 current portable and modular systems, including newer products designed primarily around residential backup.

The 13.5-kWh threshold is particularly useful because it matches the median residential battery capacity in Berkeley Lab’s 2025 sizing data. In our dataset, 26 systems, or 19.4%, can reach or exceed that level.

The systems crossing that threshold are substantial platforms. Their median base capacity is about 3.7 kWh, median maximum supported capacity is about 39.2 kWh, and median continuous AC output is about 3.7 kW.

But none of those figures, by itself, means a system can provide whole-home backup. A 20-kWh battery with only 120V output faces very different limitations than a similarly sized system with native 120/240V service and manufacturer-supported panel integration. Conversely, a powerful inverter connected to a relatively small battery may handle a large appliance but only for a limited period.

That is why battery capacity is becoming less useful as a standalone definition of the market. Portable and installed systems now overlap considerably on stored energy. The more important differences increasingly involve power delivery, voltage, electrical integration and how permanently the system becomes part of the house.

There is also one practical advantage to the modular approach that installed-system comparisons can overlook: much of the investment can generally move with the owner. The core power station and expansion batteries can be taken to another house, even if transfer equipment or other installed electrical hardware stays behind.

For systems that can weigh close to 100 pounds or more, “portable” may no longer mean easy to carry. But relocatable is still meaningfully different from permanently installed. Readers who want to explore individual models can also use our portable power station directory.

Home backup depends on four separate dimensions: energy, power, voltage and integration. A system can be strong in one area and limited in another.

A 13.5-kWh battery can store the same amount of energy whether it sits in a permanently installed home battery or an expandable modular power system. That does not mean the two systems can necessarily do the same job.

Consider power output first. A refrigerator might use relatively little energy over an entire day but briefly draw more power when its compressor starts. Well pumps, electric water heaters, dryers and central air-conditioning systems can impose much larger loads. Several appliances starting or running together can quickly exceed an inverter’s output even when plenty of stored energy remains.

Voltage creates another dividing line. Most ordinary U.S. receptacles and many household appliances use 120V, but central air conditioners, electric ranges, dryers, larger well pumps and many EV chargers commonly require 240V.

Some of today’s modular systems provide native 120/240V output from one power platform. Others produce 240V only by combining two stations or adding proprietary hardware. Still others remain 120V-only regardless of their battery capacity.

Home integration adds another layer. Newer systems can pair with proprietary smart panels or power docks, while many large power stations can connect through more conventional transfer equipment. Smaller systems are intended primarily for devices plugged directly into their outlets. Our guide to power-station transfer switches and home integration explains those options in more detail.

13.5 kWh is a market benchmark, not a runtime promise. The amount of storage a home needs changes dramatically with climate, household loads and what the owner chooses to keep running.

Battery manufacturers often make runtime easy to imagine by showing refrigerators, lights, televisions and other appliances next to estimated operating times. Whole-home backup is much harder to reduce to a single number.

A 13.5-kWh battery does not automatically provide one day, two days or any other fixed period of home backup. A home preserving food, internet access, lights and a few outlets may have relatively modest critical loads. Add a well pump, electric cooking, water heating or central air conditioning and energy consumption can rise dramatically.

Berkeley Lab modeling illustrates the range. For a three-day interruption, median storage requirements for modeled critical loads that included heating and cooling ranged from roughly 10 kWh in temperate conditions to 90 kWh in hot climates. Efficiency improvements and thermostat adjustments significantly reduced required storage in many scenarios.

Solar generation further complicates the calculation. A battery backing up a home with a properly configured solar array can recharge during an outage, potentially extending runtime well beyond what its nameplate capacity suggests. Cloud cover, season, location and array size determine how useful that solar input becomes.

Fuel can provide another layer of resilience. A generator can replenish compatible battery systems during extended outages when solar production is inadequate, turning the battery into an energy buffer while solar and fuel provide additional generation.

U.S. residential electricity prices are roughly 40% higher in EIA’s 2026 forecast than they were in 2019, while global battery costs have continued falling. That expands the potential role of batteries beyond emergency backup.

The average U.S. residential electricity price increased from 13.01 cents per kWh in 2019 to 17.30 cents in 2025. EIA’s August 2026 forecast puts the national average at 18.27 cents in 2026 and 18.65 cents in 2027. The 2026 forecast is about 40.4% higher than 2019 in nominal terms.

At the same time, the underlying cost of battery technology continues moving in the opposite direction. The International Energy Agency estimates that average battery prices fell another 8% in 2025, while average battery energy storage system prices had fallen to roughly one-third of their 2020 level.

That combination—more expensive grid electricity and less expensive batteries—creates uses beyond waiting for the power to fail. A solar owner may store excess production during the day and use it after sunset. Households on time-of-use rates may charge batteries when electricity is less expensive and discharge them during costly peak periods. Some utilities also offer programs that compensate customers for allowing batteries to support the grid during periods of high demand.

None of that means a home battery automatically saves money. Rates vary enormously by utility and location, and the economics depend on solar production, battery cost, incentives, financing, rate structure, cycling behavior and how much capacity the homeowner chooses to keep in reserve.

Cheaper batteries do not mean cheap installed systems

A complete residential storage installation includes much more than battery cells. Inverters, electrical equipment, panels or transfer hardware, permitting, system design and labor all contribute to the final cost.

Berkeley Lab’s 2025 cash-purchase data shows a median installed price of roughly $5.10/W for PV plus storage versus $3.00/W for PV alone, measured per watt of PV capacity. The paired-system pricing sample is heavily weighted toward California, so the difference should not be treated as a universal national battery-installation premium.

This also helps explain why modular backup systems have carved out a distinct place in the market. They can reduce or postpone some installation requirements, expand gradually and, in many cases, move to another property with the owner. But they are not automatically the cheaper solution once enough batteries, solar panels and home-integration equipment are added.

Readers focused specifically on portable-system pricing can see our Portable Power Station Price Index 2026 and what different budgets buy in portable power.

Residential storage adoption accelerated into 2025, but qualifying homeowners entered 2026 without the federal clean-energy credit that had covered 30% of eligible residential battery and clean-energy expenses.

The Residential Clean Energy Credit had covered 30% of qualifying residential clean-energy expenses from 2022 through 2025, including qualifying battery storage beginning in 2023. Battery systems generally needed at least 3 kWh of capacity to qualify.

The homeowner credit is no longer available for qualifying expenditures after December 31, 2025. Current IRS guidance also makes clear that prepaying for equipment in 2025 did not preserve the residential credit when installation was completed afterward.

That makes 2026 a particularly interesting point in the home-storage market. Berkeley Lab’s data shows storage attachment to new residential solar climbing from 25% in 2024 to 37% in 2025, just before the federal homeowner incentive ended.

We do not yet have enough evidence to say how much the loss of that credit will change installation volumes in 2026, and state, local and utility incentives can still materially change the economics in some markets.

The change may nevertheless make some homeowners look more closely at smaller installed systems, modular batteries that can be expanded over time, generators, or combinations of those technologies. For modular systems, one economic distinction remains especially practical: the expensive core power station and expansion batteries can generally move to the next home with the owner rather than becoming permanently tied to one property.