Working From Home Through an Outage: What Size Power Station Keeps Wi-Fi and a Laptop Running?
Updated 2026-10-09
A home office is one of the easiest things to back up. The equipment uses little power, nothing has a motor that surges on startup, and almost any power station has enough output. The only real question is how many hours you need. The runtimes below are worked out from typical wattages, not measured tests.
How much power a home office uses
| Device | Typical draw |
|---|---|
| Wi-Fi router + modem | 15 to 25W |
| Laptop (working, not gaming) | 30 to 60W |
| 24 to 27-inch monitor | 20 to 40W |
| Desktop PC (office work) | 60 to 150W |
| LED desk lamp | 5 to 10W |
| Phone charging | 10 to 20W |
Your own numbers are printed on each device's power adapter, though the label shows the maximum; average use is usually lower. A plug-in watt meter gives the real figure for a few dollars.
How long each size lasts
Runtime is the station's capacity times about 0.85 (the inverter wastes some energy), divided by the watts you're drawing.
| Setup | Draw | 250Wh | 768Wh | 1,000Wh |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Router + modem only | 20W | ~10 hours | ~32 hours | ~42 hours |
| Router, modem, laptop | 70W | ~3 hours | ~9 hours | ~12 hours |
| Add a monitor | 100W | ~2 hours | ~6.5 hours | ~8.5 hours |
| Desktop PC, monitor, router, modem | 200W | ~1 hour | ~3 hours | ~4 hours |
What that means in practice:
- Short outages and video calls: a compact station of 250 to 300Wh keeps the internet up for most of a day by itself, or a laptop setup going for about three hours.
- A full workday on a laptop: a mid-size station around 700 to 800Wh covers eight hours with a monitor.
- A desktop PC, or more than one day: start at the 1kWh class. For multi-day outages, add solar panels or plan to recharge somewhere with power.
Ways to stretch the runtime
- Run the laptop on its own battery first. A laptop already has a few hours built in. Plug it into the station only when it runs low.
- Charge the laptop over USB-C if you can. The station's USB-C port skips the inverter, so less energy is wasted than with the laptop's wall charger. Check that the port's wattage matches what the laptop needs (often 65W or 100W).
- Skip the second monitor. Each one adds 20 to 40W, which is about as much as the laptop itself.
- Turn off the AC outlets when nothing is plugged in. The inverter uses a little power just by being on.
Will the internet still work?
Often yes, but not always. Your modem and router need power, which the station provides. The provider's equipment in the neighborhood also needs power:
- Fiber usually keeps working, as long as the small fiber terminal in your home (the ONT) is plugged into the station too.
- Cable internet depends on powered equipment along the street. It often has battery backup that lasts a few hours, so service can drop in a long or widespread outage.
- Phone hotspot is the fallback. Cell towers have their own backup power, and a phone uses very little of the station's capacity.
Do you need UPS mode?
Only for a desktop PC, or if a dropped video call would be a real problem. A laptop rides through an outage on its own battery, and a router that loses power for a moment simply restarts in a couple of minutes.
If you want the switch to be seamless, leave the station plugged into the wall with your equipment plugged into it, and pick a model with a short switchover time. Can a power station work as a UPS? explains what to look for.
The short version
- Add up your devices: a laptop, router and modem come to about 70W; add 30W for a monitor.
- Multiply by the hours you need, then divide by 0.85. Eight hours at 100W needs roughly 950Wh; eight hours at 70W needs about 650Wh.
- Any station on this site has enough output for office equipment, so choose by capacity and price.
Add your own devices to the calculator for an exact figure, then compare stations by capacity.