Emergency Backup Power for RV and Home — What Fits a Small Setup?

[isabellathomas]

We full-time in a small travel trailer based in American Samoa, and power outages here are common enough that we want one backup system that works for both the rig and the house when we're parked. I've been reading about 2026 emergency backup power options online, and the choices seem to split between portable power stations, home battery backup units, and small inverter generators.

Our concern is capacity versus weight. The trailer doesn't have much storage, and I don't want something so heavy it stays home. But I also can't tell whether a mid-size portable station would actually run the fridge or a few lights long enough to matter, or whether a home battery style unit is overkill for a fairly modest load. Wiring one unit into both the trailer and the house also sounds more complicated than the descriptions suggest.

For anyone running a similar dual-use setup, what did you end up choosing, and what did you wish you'd known about runtime and hookup before buying? Thanks.

Update after reading through Best Emergency Backup Power of 2026 - the capacity versus weight tradeoff still worries me most for trailer storage. I'm leaning toward pricing a mid-size portable station first, but hooking one into both the trailer and house seems harder than it looks.

 

[Kevin D Pem]

First question is what kind of fridge do you have?

 

[allenlook]

If you are powering a refrigerator and are worried about the value of the food inside that would be lost, I would not opt for a "solar generator" (big battery in a box), I would opt for a lightweight inverter generator like a Honda 2000i that you can feed fuel for days on end. It weighs less than many big batteries in a box, and it will last as long as you can feed it, even at night when the sun isn't shining.