How to calculate your home battery needs for the next blackout
1 min read
Summary
Understanding the watt-hour measure of battery capacity is essential for determining the effectiveness of devices during blackouts or off-grid adventures, according to an article in the Verge.
While the average US home consumption is 889kWh per month (29.2kWh per day), a battery would need to have a capacity of 1000Wh to power a 10W LED bulb for 100 hours.
However, some batteries and devices opt for amp-hour (Ah) specifications instead, where the amp-hour spec requires purchasers to know the voltage and can be more complicated for consumers.
Validating calculations are important too, as actual watt-hours available to power devices can often be less than the battery capacity due to age, temperature, and other factors.
Lastly, batteries are most useful when easily accessible, so companies often sell all-in-one power stations with built-in AC and DC outputs, meaning some capacity is used for in-station AC/DC conversions.