Several friends have been discussing the need to be prepared when/if there are power outages in the UK in Winter or Spring.
Our assumption is that the outage would not be longer than a day. Some of the battery backup systems cost thousands, which could be justified (say) over a 5-year life period, but it's unrealistic in the UK to want to be prepared with a backup source for 5 years for the home, given that any power outages won't be very frequent. Granted that backup systems could be used to obtain cheap(er) electricity at off-peak times, but it is hard to predict if the savings will be that significant enough to justify the big up-front expense commitment.
A generator is unattractive because of the noise, but we are open to it, but would definitely prefer a battery solution. Cooking food with an electricity source isn't too important; if there isn't natural gas connection in the kitchen, then camping gear could be used.
Then we noticed there are power banks. Some are in the $200 price range, many are $300-$500, and there are others circa $1000 and beyond.
There are lots of obscure power bank products such as the one below. It's a lot of energy to keep in a home, so whatever is used needs to be safe.
(Image source: Amazon)
Backup lighting sources are cheap; there are even power tool ecosystems that use the same battery for task lights, so they could be used in a pinch. Not elegant, but it gets the job done at low cost.
However, we were not sure how to deal with IT equipment. Routers/DSL modems are straightforward because they operate from 12V or 5V and a backup supply is easily rigged up for that.
For laptops, it could be attractive to have a backup supply that offers USB Type C output, since many laptops (or lower power chromebooks) have a USB-C socket for power nowadays.
Any battery banks, or other backup scheme, that people can recommend? It would be nice to be able to charge (and run) laptops and power and charge anything that uses a USB connector. Perhaps a minimum of 100W power support would be needed, although really several hundred W would be preferred, so that a couple of laptops could be run, iPad, phones charged and so on. An additional 12V output would be a nice-to-have, to charge up or operate other devices. AC mains output is not essential. Hot-standby is not essential either, since a laptop will continue to run on its own battery while power connections are swapped.
Any comments/ideas appreciated!
