Home backup power spans portable batteries, residential storage, standby generators and the wider grid systems that support resilience. The available evidence is primarily U.S.-specific, with outage data from 2024, residential-storage survey results from 2021, historical generator estimates, and utility-storage observations through July 2024.
Key Home Backup Power Statistics
The most useful figures across outages, adoption, storage growth and system economics are:
- U.S. electricity customers experienced an average of 11 hours of interruption in 2024, including major events.
- Major events accounted for 80% of U.S. hours without electricity in 2024, under utility reliability reporting classifications.
- The U.S. average interruption frequency was 1.5 events per customer in 2024, counting non-momentary interruptions.
- South Carolina customers experienced nearly 53 hours of interruption per customer in 2024, heavily reflecting major weather events.
- Hurricane Helene affected 5.9 million customers across 10 states in September 2024, according to EIA’s event total.
- Standby generators were present in an estimated 3.5% of U.S. households in the 2017 source estimate, a measure broader than battery backup.
- The 2017 source estimate counted 3.4 million existing residential standby-generator units in the United States.
- Annual residential standby-generator sales revenue was estimated at about $1 billion in the 2017 source estimate.
- Storage appeared in 28% of installations reported by surveyed U.S. installers in 2021, rather than in a census of all residential projects.
- In Florida, storage appeared in 41% of surveyed installer installations in 2021.
- Among EnergySage shoppers in 2021, 36% reported backup power as a reason for adopting storage.
- More than 50% of new California residential solar PV installations were paired with batteries in April 2024, in estimated preliminary data.
- More than 40,000 California solar-plus-battery installations were added from October 2023 through April 2024, representing 232 MW of battery capacity.
- U.S. utilities reported 15,814 MW across 575 operating batteries at the end of 2023, a utility-scale measure rather than household capacity.
- Utilities planned 35,953 MW of additional battery capacity by the end of 2028, based on reported plans.
- More than 20.7 GW of U.S. utility-scale battery-energy-storage capacity was available in July 2024.
- Battery cost was identified by 75% of surveyed installers as a primary storage-sales barrier in 2021.
- A 2016 illustrative Arizona storage system was rated at 4 kW/6 kWh and cost $1,097 per kWh, a historical example rather than a current retail price.
- Combined U.S. utility-scale electric-storage and battery-storage capacity was under 2% of total generating capacity in 2021, according to FERC.
Contents
- Outage duration and frequency
- Residential adoption and demand
- Home battery and solar-storage growth
- Utility battery capacity and trends
- Costs, barriers and system economics
- Resilience policy and distributed resources
Home Backup Power Statistics: Outage Duration and Frequency
EIA’s reliability measures describe utility customer interruptions, not the percentage of households that own backup equipment. That distinction matters: an area can have significant outage exposure without a directly measured ownership rate.
| Measure | Period and geography | Reported result |
|---|---|---|
| Average interruption duration | 2024, U.S. customers | 11 hours per customer |
| Major-event share | 2024, United States | 80% of interruption hours |
| Major-event duration | 2024, U.S. customers | Nearly 9 hours per customer |
| Interruption frequency | 2024, U.S. customers | 1.5 events per customer |
| Major-event average | 2014–2023, U.S. customers | Nearly 4 hours per customer per year |
Source: EIA, “Hurricanes in 2024 led to the most hours without power in the United States in 10 years”.
Non-major-event service interruptions routinely averaged about 2 hours per year in EIA’s 2024 context. The 2024 major-event figure therefore stands out against the cited ten-year average, but these are reliability measures, not a household backup-runtime requirement.
State and event results show why national averages can conceal materially different experiences:
- South Carolina customers recorded nearly 53 hours of interruption per customer in 2024, the highest state value cited by EIA.
- Hawaii customers experienced 4.4 interruptions per customer in 2024; EIA attributes frequent interruptions to weather, volcanic activity, plant outages and interconnection issues.
- Arizona, South Dakota, North Dakota and Massachusetts customers each averaged less than 2 hours of interruption per customer in 2024; EIA reported these as less-than-2-hour values rather than exact state figures.
- Hurricane Beryl left 2.6 million Texas customers without power in July 2024, an event impact rather than an annual household outage rate.
- Hurricane Helene affected 5.9 million customers across 10 states in September 2024, including at least 1.2 million customers in South Carolina.
- Hurricane Milton left 3.4 million Florida customers without power in October 2024.
Residential Backup Power Adoption and Consumer Demand
The available adoption evidence covers different technologies and populations. A historical standby-generator estimate should not be combined with installer-reported battery-storage activity as though both were household ownership surveys.
GTM Research’s estimate reproduced in a 2017 DOE webinar placed standby generators in 3.5% of U.S. households and counted 3.4 million existing residential standby-generator units. The same historical estimate put annual residential standby-generator sales revenue at about $1 billion; it covered standby generators, not portable batteries.
Source: DOE, “Peer Exchange Call Series: Powered Up: Batteries and the Future of Residential Energy Storage”.
NREL reproduced a survey of 501 respondents from 43 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, conducted in the first quarter of 2022 about 2021 activity. More than 70% of surveyed installers installed less than 1 MW of residential capacity in 2021, so the results describe installer respondents rather than total national capacity.
- Storage was included in 28% of installations reported by surveyed installers nationwide in 2021.
- Storage was included in 41% of surveyed installer installations in Florida in 2021.
- Storage was included in 38% of surveyed installer installations in California in 2021.
- Among EnergySage shoppers, 41% said financial savings drove storage adoption in 2021, while 36% said backup power drove adoption.
Source: NREL, “Summer 2022 Solar Industry Update”.
These survey figures indicate reported project mix and stated motivations, not the share of all households with storage or the number of completed installations nationwide.
Home Battery and Solar-Storage Growth Statistics
California provides a detailed example of residential solar-storage pairing, but the reported series is small-scale and preliminary. EIA defines the small-scale systems in this context as systems under 1 MW, and the October 2023 through April 2024 data were estimated preliminary monthly observations.
| California residential measure | October 2023 | April 2024 or period total |
|---|---|---|
| New residential solar PV paired with batteries | Just over 20% | More than 50% |
| New solar-plus-battery installations | — | More than 40,000 added Oct. 2023–Apr. 2024 |
| Battery capacity added | — | 232 MW, Oct. 2023–Apr. 2024 |
| Installed residential net-metering capacity paired with batteries | — | About 9% in April 2024 |
Source: EIA, “California residents are increasingly pairing battery storage with solar installations”.
The pairing share increased by more than 30 percentage points from October 2023 to April 2024, based on EIA’s rounded descriptions of just over 20% and more than 50%. This is a derived comparison of rounded reported values, not a precision measurement.
About 99.5% of California small-scale residential installed capacity was net metered in the EIA note. The roughly 9% battery-paired capacity share is a capacity measure, not a share of households, and the 232 MW figure describes added battery capacity rather than delivered energy or backup duration.
Utility Battery Capacity Trends Related to Home Backup Power
Utility-scale batteries do not measure portable-power ownership, but they show how quickly storage capacity is expanding around the electricity system that homes depend on. Capacity is generally nameplate power capacity, not the amount of energy delivered during a household outage.
At the end of 2023, U.S. utilities reported 575 operating batteries with collective capacity of 15,814 MW. Of that capacity, 10,487 MW had arbitrage as the primary use case, while utilities reported plans for 35,953 MW of additional battery capacity by the end of 2028; planned additions are forecasts based on utility-reported plans, not guaranteed completion.
Source: EIA, “Utilities report batteries are most commonly used for arbitrage and grid stability”.
EIA also reported that operators added 5 GW of U.S. utility-scale battery capacity in the first seven months of 2024. More than 20.7 GW of utility-scale battery-energy-storage capacity was available in July 2024, compared with only 4 MW added in 2010.
Source: EIA, “Batteries are a fast-growing secondary electricity source for the grid”.
FERC cited EIA-derived installed nameplate data showing U.S. battery-storage capacity rising from 3 MW in 2016 to 4,482 MW in 2021. FERC also cited a historical EIA projection of 30 GW of total U.S. battery-storage capacity by 2025; that was a forecast in the 2024 primer, not a realized 2025 observation.
Source: FERC, “2024 Energy Primer”.
Home Backup Power Costs, Barriers and System Economics
Cost evidence in the sources is either survey-based or historical and illustrative. It should not be read as a current national quote for a portable power station, a whole-home battery or a generator installation.
In the 2021 installer survey, 75% identified battery cost as a primary barrier to storage sales, and 44% identified insufficient incentives. Battery availability was identified by 35%, up from 20% in 2020; these are respondent perceptions, and year-to-year comparability depends on survey wording and sample.
- Freight delays were cited by 75% of surveyed installers reporting supply-constraint impacts in 2021; the denominator is the relevant subgroup, not all installers.
- Lack of trained labor was identified by 44% of surveyed installers as a barrier to growing business in 2021; this measures a business-growth concern, not a measured household installation delay.
Source: NREL, “Summer 2022 Solar Industry Update”.
A DOE webinar reproduced an illustrative 2016 Salt River Project residential storage example in Arizona. The system was rated at 4 kW/6 kWh, with an illustrative storage cost of $1,097 per kWh; its paired solar system was 6 kW at $3.05 per watt.
The same illustrative tariff had an energy charge ranging from $0.039/kWh to $0.063/kWh and a demand charge ranging from $3.41/kW to $34.19/kW. These figures describe one historical Arizona tariff example, and demand charges are not universal residential charges.
Source: DOE, “Peer Exchange Call Series: Powered Up: Batteries and the Future of Residential Energy Storage”.
Grid Resilience, Distributed Energy Resources and Backup-Power Policy
FERC reported that combined U.S. utility-scale electric-storage and battery-storage capacity was under 2% of total generating capacity in 2021. That system-level share is not an energy share and does not represent residential backup ownership.
Pumped-hydro storage accounted for 21 GW of U.S. storage capacity in 2021, according to FERC’s primer. This is utility-scale pumped hydro, not household backup equipment.
Policy targets provide context for deployment, but a target does not prove that the target was met:
- California adopted a target to procure 1,325 MW of energy-storage capacity by 2024; FERC described it as a policy target adopted in 2013.
- Five states besides California had set energy-storage requirements or targets as of May 2021: Oregon, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Virginia.
- FERC describes distributed-energy-resource installations as ranging from a fraction of a kW to systems producing less than 10 MW; the category includes storage, solar, demand response and electric-vehicle equipment.
Source: FERC, “2024 Energy Primer”.
The policy and grid figures help define the ecosystem around home backup power, but they should remain separate from household adoption statistics. EIA’s distributed-generator data are also sector-specific, non-net-metered figures, and battery reporting changed in 2023, so those values require their own definitions rather than direct comparison with residential solar-plus-battery or generator estimates.