Shortly before we moved, I bought a lithium-battery based power station. It’s basically a big box (“bigger than a breadbox,” if anybody even remembers those) that has a large lithium iron phosphate battery and an inverter. It’s heavy (50 lbs?). But it stores 2kwh of energy and can supply 2200 watts.
Our kitchen currently doesn’t even have any outlets in it. The power station has capacity enough to run the microwave and the coffee maker, though not at the same time.
How handy, though, to be able to have those important kitchen tools available. A full charge lasts over a week, and I just use an extension cord to plug it into the wall when I have the generator running. Soon it will charge from the big solar while I re-wire the house.
I bought it while we were still on the mainland. It was something of an impulse buy, because things with big batteries are hard to get here since they’re not allowed to ship on airplanes. I thought, perhaps, I’d wasted my money, but it has turned out to be a real convenience.
—2p