Best Portable Power Stations for NYC Apartments
Summer heat waves strain the grid, and a short outage in a high-rise means no elevator, no Wi-Fi and a phone at 4%. Renters can’t run a gas generator indoors, and shouldn’t: gas and propane generators produce carbon monoxide. A battery power station is the apartment-friendly backup. It’s quiet, makes no fumes, and charges from a regular outlet.
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Our quick picks (tap a name to jump to it)
- Jackery Explorer 1000 v2: The best all-around backup for a one- or two-bedroom
- Jackery Explorer 300 Plus: Working from home through an outage
- EcoFlow RIVER 2 Pro: A strong mid-size option for less
- Anker SOLIX C1000 Gen 2: Fast recharging
- EcoFlow DELTA 3 Plus: Larger apartments and medical devices
How to pick a size
- Watt-hours (Wh) is the size of the battery. A 1,000 Wh unit can run a 100-watt load for very roughly 8 to 9 hours after conversion losses.
- Phones, laptops, a router and LED lamps use very little. A 300 to 700 Wh unit covers a work day.
- A mini fridge or CPAP overnight calls for around 1,000 Wh or more. Check the device’s wattage label.
- Window air conditioners draw far more. A power station can run one only briefly, so don’t buy one expecting to stay cool through a long outage.
The power station picks, in detail
Jackery Explorer 1000 v2
Best for: The best all-around backup for a one- or two-bedroom
About 1,070 watt-hours of capacity with long-lasting LFP batteries, and at roughly 24 pounds it’s light enough for one person to carry from room to room. Enough to keep a router, laptops, phones and lights going through an outage.
Jackery Explorer 300 Plus
Best for: Working from home through an outage
A compact, roughly 290 watt-hour unit that keeps a laptop, a router and phones running. Small enough to live on a bookshelf.
EcoFlow RIVER 2 Pro
Best for: A strong mid-size option for less
About 768 watt-hours at around 18 pounds, and it recharges from the wall in roughly 70 minutes.
Anker SOLIX C1000 Gen 2
Best for: Fast recharging
About 1,024 watt-hours, and it can recharge fully in under an hour, which helps when power flickers on and off.
EcoFlow DELTA 3 Plus
Best for: Larger apartments and medical devices
About 1,024 watt-hours, expandable with add-on batteries. Its UPS mode switches over in about 10 milliseconds, so a router or a device you can’t have shut off keeps running when the power drops.
Using one safely indoors
- Keep it on a hard, flat surface with room around the vents.
- Store it charged. Top it off every few months so it’s ready when you need it.
- Follow the manufacturer’s limits on what you plug in. Space heaters and AC units can exceed the output rating.
Setting up the rest of the apartment? See the full NYC Move-In List.