I don’t trust that things won’t go wrong in life because it doesn’t take much to tip some of the systems we rely on all the way over. A couple of those systems are our infrastructure, and I don’t have advice about gas, internet, or really even water but I do feel very strongly about a particular set of things that are enabled by electrical power.
Ignoring the catastrophic long-term or electrical-hardware-destroying scenarios, there are plenty very strong reasons to have a battery or fossil fuel backup. Where snow or icefall can take out the grid for long periods or prevent any reasonable form of transportation we still need to be able to try to summon help. We must maintain communication with the outside world for public safety and report what’s happening for help to be triaged by our government and military officials. We need lights to be on for the same reasons and more, like our own sanity.
The problem I find in the discourse about gas and “solar generators” on youtube especially today is that they seem to be excluded by one another. Most people probably don’t want to obsess over the worst that could happen or spend money preparing for it. Because of this, I think most have ignored a powerful combo:
Cheaping out on solar arrays, over-sizing a battery but having multiple smaller batteries and keeping as small a generator as small as possible.
This creates redundancy, if all you need to is charge a phone a 100w panel is overkill, and that’s hopefully all you need to do in a situation to start the process of finding help. I have amateur radios that enable much the same. If you need to keep your fridge cold, though, you might find your frozen meat a little closer to liquid than you’d like much too soon. The sun doesn’t stop but clouds can certainly ruin a solely solar system.
You can undersize a solar array and save a fortune. Right now it’s \(1/watt here. A decent 1000 watt continuous generator can cost you as little as \)300. Batteries appear to be coming down, specifically LiFePo4 batteries which are considerably safer if less energy dense than Li-Ion or LiPo. I can get batteries with robust MPPT solar chargers, big inverters and fast-charging via AC for \(0.50/Wh. I can charge my 1050 Wh Anker Solix C1000 at 600/700 watts on my Westinghouse i1500. That'll charge the battery in roughly 90 minutes from 20%. for \)850 (500 for the battery and 350 for the generator) and ~50$ on a 30 watt solar panel and wire I have a system that could keep my food cold for weeks on the generally 25 gal. regulations will allow you to keep in your home (firefighters shouldn’t have gas hoarders to worry about).