Hurricane & Storm Survival Guide Safe Reliable Emergency Power

Solutions to Help you Through Hurricanes and Superstorms: A Back-up Power Survival Guide
A guide for choosing safe, reliable emergency back-up power solutions for your home or business to prepare for hurricane and storm-related outages & blackouts.
With experts predicting more severe tropical storms, hurricanes and other extreme weather events worldwide, SimpliPhi is committed to helping homeowners, renters, businesses, hospitals and communities prepare a reliable and safe emergency back-up power plan to mitigate the hardships of living without power. Whether you have to board up your windows and shelter in-place for several days, or quickly pack a vehicle and evacuate to stay out of the storm’s path, this guide and our library of online resources will help you choose the optimal emergency power solution for your home, business and community.

Understand Your Backup Power Options
Diesel or gas generators are not the only emergency back-up power available and, when combined with SimpliPhi’s safe, indoor/outdoor battery powered generators (ExprESS & AccEES), precious and often scarce fuel can be preserved during prolonged power shutoffs. SimpliPhi’s residential, mobile and portable backup power storage solutions feature lithium ferro phosphate (LFP), offering significant advantages:
- They are ready when you need them. SimpliPhi’s energy storage and emergency power solutions do not require annual maintenance and only lose <1% of charge on a monthly basis when not in use.
- SimpliPhi’s energy storage can be used indoors or outdoors without ventilation, cooling or the risk of overheating or fire. LFP does not contain cobalt, the source of toxicity, hazards and ‘thermal runaway’ associated with other lithium batteries. LFP is environmentally benign, non-toxic and safe to use as a personal power source — even with extended use.
- Adding a SimpliPhi energy storage solution can improve generator performance, extend its life, save fuel and extend your energy budget during an outage. With SimpliPhi batteries, a generator changes its role from being a source of primary power to a source for charging power. Once the PHI batteries are charged, the generator is turned off until it’s time to charge again
By contrast, consider the constraints using fuel-based generators:
- Most of today’s gas station fuel pumps require electricity to operate. Finding a station that is able to provide fuel during a power shutoff can be incredibly difficult — especially when entire counties and regions are affected. If you are able to find non-electric pumps, expect to wait hours in line to buy fuel and pay vastly inflated prices before the pumps run out entirely.
- In the unlikely scenario that home improvement retail stores are able to remain open without power, they will probably not have enough generators in stock for the increased demand during outages.
- Fuel-based generators release carbon monoxide and toxic pollutants, making it unsafe to use them inside a home, in a garage or under a carport or covered porch. Opening windows or opening a garage door does not help — the carbon monoxide in generator exhaust can sicken or kill.

Understand Your Solar Array As Back-Up
If you have installed grid-tied solar without energy storage, you will lose power during an outage. Grid-tied solar arrays feed electricity to the grid, not your home or commercial building. Adding as few as two PHI batteries to an existing solar installation will allow you to disconnect or ‘island’ from the grid for as long as utility service is unavailable and continue to generate, store and use your own power until the grid is restored.
Understand How Much Power You Will Need
How much electricity do you want at your disposal when the grid goes down? Storage solutions are as diverse as the range of customers who need them. As a homeowner, you might decide to create a residential energy storage system sized to provide power only for critical loads like the refrigerator, a home medical device, a computer, cell phone charging, lights and the HVAC system, while another could decide to install a large PHI battery bank sized to support a home’s entire utility load. Yet another could decide to keep it simple and select a turn-key mobile energy storage solution to take with them in the event of an evacuation, like the ExprESS or Genny Emergency Kits. These turn-key solutions are also ideal for people who rent homes, condominiums or apartments.
Model | Type | Features |
---|---|---|
PHI Batteries | Hard wired* |
|
AccESS Energy Storage System | Turn-key hard wired* |
|
ExprESS Mobile AC Generator | Turn-key mobile or hard wired* |
|
Genny Emergency Kits | Portable |
|
*Initial installation by a licensed C10 or C46 electrician required
SimpiPhi’s applications engineers and I.Q. Certified Installers can help you calculate how much energy storage capacity you will need and what solution is best for you. ExprESS (mobile use), Little and Big Genny Emergency Kits can be purchased directly from Amazon.
Know Your Manufacturer
When it comes to emergency power, failure is not an option. SimpliPhi’s storage solutions have been proven in the field for a decade, including by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Safety is also critical. SimpliPhi storage solutions are ideally suited for use in regions prone to wildfires because they feature the safest, cobalt-free lithium ion chemistry: there are no toxic hazards, no fumes and no risk of fire from the battery itself. Many consumers do not realize that most other lithium ion batteries contain cobalt — which can be incredibly dangerous in a fire because there is no means to extinguish a cobalt battery that catches fire, and because cobalt fires produce deadly, toxic fumes.
Beyond safety and reliability, we are a California company whose employees and business operations are also vulnerable to natural disasters where we live and work. When our headquarters were forced to close due to wildfire danger and our employees had to evacuate their homes, we relied personally on the technology we design, manufacture and sell every day. Our own experience inspires our dedication to making sure that every individual and business has the ability to safely and reliably generate their own power, store it, and utilize it on their terms — even taking it with them in an evacuation.