Portable Power Station Finder UK: Be Ready for Power Cuts

A portable power station only earns its place if it can carry your load for long enough and switch over fast enough that nothing restarts. This finder compares 24 lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) units sold in the UK on price, sustained output, UPS speed, solar input, scheduled charging, charge limits and runtime, so you can see which ones fit your equipment and budget.

Why lead-acid UPS batteries are giving way to LiFePO4

Most of us know the traditional UPS: a heavy box under the desk with a sealed lead-acid battery inside, built to keep a computer running for a few minutes while it shuts down. That design has three weaknesses, and they matter more now that power cuts are something to plan for.

The batteries wear out in a few years. APC says most of its UPS batteries last three to five years but ask any IT company and its not true, reality is one to two years, and that every power failure or 8°C rise in temperature halves that. A battery that would last four years (in theory) at 25°C lasts only one at 33°C, and the battery inside a UPS always runs warmer than the room around it. Every deep discharge during a power cut wears it further.

You only get part of the capacity on the label. Lead-acid batteries are rated at slow discharge rates, but a UPS empties them in minutes, and the faster a lead-acid battery is discharged, the less energy it gives. To protect their life, they’re normally only run down to about half their capacity. UPS sizes are also quoted in VA, and the watts a unit can actually supply are lower than that figure suggests.

Runtime is measured in minutes. A traditional UPS is designed to bridge a short blip or give you time to save your work. It isn’t designed to keep a router, phones and a fridge going through an afternoon without power.

LiFePO4 (lithium iron phosphate) power stations deal with all three. The units in our finder are rated for 3,000 to 6,000 charge cycles, hold anything from 128 Wh to over 4 kWh, and most now switch over in 10 to 20 ms, so they work as a UPS as well as a backup battery.

* EcoFlow ended APC's UPS monopoly with USB shutdown on their power stations *

That’s why we see 2026 as the turning point. With UPS switching now built into lithium power stations, one unit can do the job of a desk UPS and an hours-long backup battery, and keep doing it for around a decade rather than needing a new battery every few years. A traditional online UPS still has its place for servers that can’t tolerate any break in power at all, but for most homes and small offices, a LiFePO4 power station is now the better buy.

Our pick: EcoFlow RIVER 3 Plus and the DELTA 3 series

How to size a portable power station for your equipment

Work through these four checks before comparing prices. The finder below applies the same rules.

1. Add up the maximum wattage

   List everything that will run at the same time and add up each device’s maximum wattage, not its typical draw. You’ll find it on the device label or its power supply. The wattage calculator below does the sum for you, with typical figures for computers, network equipment and appliances.

2. Leave headroom on the output

   Pick a unit whose rated output is at least 10% above your total. The finder only matches units that would run at 90% of their rating or less.

3. Choose the UPS speed

   If the station sits between the mains and your equipment, choose 10ms or less for computers and internet equipment, and no more than 20ms for everything else.

4. Set how much battery to use

   Running between 80% and 20% gives the best battery life and a safety margin at both ends. Wider windows give more runtime but less margin.

Wattage calculator: how much power and battery you need

Start here if you’re not sure what your equipment draws. Choose what you want to keep running and how many of each. The calculator adds up your peak load, which sets the output you need, and your average draw, which sets how much battery you need for the time you choose. Find power stations for this then takes your totals straight to the finder below.

Figures are typical values from manufacturer datasheets, published measurements and the Centre for Sustainable Energy, with our estimates where nothing is published. If you know your own equipment’s draw, the label or power supply shows its maximum, and a plug-in power meter shows what it really uses.

The calculator needs JavaScript. You can still add up your equipment’s wattage by hand and enter the total in the finder below.

Portable power station finder: UK prices, UPS speed and runtime

Choose Match my load to filter by wattage, budget and UPS speed, or Show every unit to browse all 24. Runtimes update as you move the load slider, and each card has its own slider so you can try a different load on that unit.

The interactive finder needs JavaScript. Every unit, with its price and full specification, is listed in the table further down this page.

Portable power station specifications compared

Every unit in the finder, with its full specification. Figures come from manufacturer specification sheets and independent reviews; prices come from manufacturer UK stores and UK retailers, checked on 22–23 October 2026. Where a figure hasn’t been published, we say so rather than guess.

UPS switchover speed: when 10ms matters

In UPS mode the power station stays plugged into the mains and passes power straight through to your equipment. If the mains fails, it switches to its own battery, and the switchover time is how long your equipment goes without power during that change.

Aim for 10ms or less for computers and internet equipment. Desktop PCs, routers, firewalls, network switches and NAS drives can restart or drop their connection if the gap is longer. 20ms is the most we would accept for anything else, such as lighting, TVs, fridges and chargers.

Units rated at 30ms, such as the EcoFlow DELTA 2 and RIVER 2 Max, work well as backup batteries but are not a dependable UPS for a desktop PC. For business networks, see our network installation and IT support services.

Charging on a schedule: fill up on cheap overnight electricity

A power station that sits plugged in all day as a UPS can do a second job. On a time-of-use electricity tariff, power is much cheaper for a few hours overnight than during the day. A station that charges on a schedule fills its battery in those cheap hours, then runs your equipment from the stored energy during the day, when electricity costs most.

From 1 October to 31 December 2026, Ofgem’s price cap sets the average standard electricity rate at 26.32p per kWh, with VAT removed from household electricity until the end of March 2027. Time-of-use tariffs split the day instead: a cheap overnight window, often around 7p to 10p per kWh, and a daytime rate that is usually higher than the price cap, often 25p to 34p. Octopus Go, Intelligent Octopus Go, EDF GoElectric, E.ON Next Drive and So Energy’s SO EV are all examples, and most suppliers still offer Economy 7. Rates vary by region and change often, so check your own tariff.

Many of the cheapest overnight tariffs are aimed at electric car owners, and some only accept customers with a compatible car or charger. All of them need a smart meter. Tariffs such as Octopus Agile change price every half hour, which a fixed charging schedule can’t follow, so set the schedule to the hours that are reliably cheapest.

What it’s worth

A power station loses some energy in charging and in its inverter. Allow for about 85% round-trip efficiency and electricity bought at 8p per kWh costs about 9.4p for each kWh the station delivers. Against a daytime rate of 26p to 34p, that saves roughly 17p to 24p for every kWh your equipment uses from the battery instead of the mains.

A 2 kWh station run from full down to a 40% reserve delivers about 1 kWh, enough for a 125 W desk setup through an eight-hour working day. That saves around £45 to £65 a year over 260 working days. It won’t pay for the power station on its own, but it’s a useful return on a unit you’ve bought for backup. One charge a day is about 365 cycles a year, so a battery rated for 4,000 cycles still lasts over ten years.

How scheduled charging works

The finder’s Only show units that can charge on a schedule tick box, and the matching one above the specification table, show the 13 units that support it. Setting one up takes four steps.

1. Move to a time-of-use tariff

   You need a smart meter and a tariff with a cheap overnight rate. Note the exact cheap hours, such as 00:30 to 04:30 on Octopus Go.

2. Set the same hours in the app

   Enter your off-peak window in the maker’s app. EcoFlow and Anker call this TOU mode; BLUETTI calls it Time-of-Use or Time Control; Jackery offers an off-peak charging schedule. Some apps also let you set a mid-peak period.

3. Set a backup reserve

   The reserve is the charge level the station won’t go below during the day, so there’s always battery left for a power cut. For a station acting as a UPS, 40% to 50% is a sensible starting point.

4. Leave it plugged in

   In the cheap hours, the station charges from the mains and passes mains power through to your equipment. Outside them, it runs your equipment from the battery until it reaches the reserve, then switches back to mains. If the mains fails at any point, it carries on from the battery as normal.

Which power stations can charge on a schedule

These are the units in our finder, grouped by maker, based on manufacturers’ published features and user manuals as of 23 October 2026. Makers add features through firmware updates, so a unit listed as not advertised may gain a schedule later.

A smart plug on the station’s mains lead can give any unit a crude schedule: the plug cuts the mains outside your cheap hours, so the station runs from its battery. It can’t hold a backup reserve, though, so the battery may run flat before the cheap rate returns and leave nothing for a real power cut. Every time the plug switches off, your equipment also goes through a UPS switchover, so only try this with a 10ms unit.

Charge limits: hold the battery at 80% so it lasts longer

A power station used as a UPS spends almost all its life plugged in. Left on its default settings, most will charge to 100% and sit there, topping up every time the level dips, for months at a time. Lithium batteries age fastest when they’re held full, and faster still when they’re warm, which a battery inside a working power station often is.

LiFePO4 copes with this far better than the lithium batteries in phones and laptops, but the same rule applies: a battery that spends its time at 80% wears more slowly than one kept at 100%. That’s why EcoFlow suggests an 80% charge limit, and why Jackery’s Battery Saving Mode stops at 85%. It’s also why the finder’s Normal setting assumes you use the battery between 80% and 20%.

How a charge limit works

You set the highest level you want in the maker’s app, usually anywhere from 50% to 100%. The station charges to that level and stops. While it’s plugged in, it carries on passing mains power through to your equipment, so the UPS still works, and the battery simply waits at your chosen level. If the mains fails, it switches to the battery as normal.

There’s one trade-off: an 80% limit leaves a fifth of the battery unused, so a power cut runs the station flat about 25% sooner than from full. If runtime matters more than battery life, for example before a forecast storm, raise the limit to 100% for a day or two and then set it back.

Not every limit works the same way

The finder’s Only show units that can hold a charge limit tick box, and the matching one above the specification table, show the 17 units with some form of limit. They fall into three groups.

We couldn’t find a charge limit for the BLUETTI Elite 10 and EB3A, the EcoFlow TRAIL 300 DC and TRAIL Plus 300 DC, or the Jackery Explorer 500 v2. Jackery hasn’t yet published one for the new Explorer 1000 Plus v2 and 2000 Plus v2. This is based on manufacturers’ published features, manuals and support pages as of 23 October 2026, and makers add settings through firmware updates, so check the app on any unit you already own.

How the runtime estimate is worked out

Each runtime uses one sum: battery capacity × discharge window × efficiency ÷ your load. The discharge window is the slice of the battery you choose to use:

• Normal, 80% to 20%: uses 60% of the battery. Best for battery life, with a safety margin at both ends.
• Intermediate, 90% to 15%: uses 75% of the battery.
• Maximum, 100% to 10%: uses 90% of the battery, with the least margin.

We allow 85% efficiency from the AC sockets, to cover the inverter’s losses, and 90% from DC outlets. Idle draw, cold weather and battery age all reduce runtime further, so treat every figure as an estimate. For expandable units, each card also shows the runtime with the largest expansion the maker supports.