So a few weeks ago the power went out and yet we still had at least one light on in our house and even the Internet for another hour until that crapped out region-wide.

I bought one of those portable power stations awhile back, not for power outages, but for another emergency plan I have that some of you may think puts me into the super paranoid category.

The power station is a Bluetti 100 V2 Portable Power Station with a 200 watt solar panel. The whole deal cost less than $700, which means I’ll never really see a return on my investment because Flathead Electric Co-op’s power rates are so low, but I will have back-up power if I need it.

And here’s why I bought it: In the event of a big wildfire (like the sort that burned down entire neighborhoods in California) I wanted to have a way to sprinkle my house. I have a 250 gallon water tank, an electric pump, plenty of irrigation lines from the greenhouse and the fruit trees in my yard and now I have a stand alone power supply that will run the thing for at least several hours. I’ll run out of water way before I run out of power.

Sound paranoid? Absolutely. But it turns out the Bluetti has plenty of cool uses I never thought of, mainly when it comes to remodeling my kitchen.

My backyard has no power, or at least easy power, which is to say I have to run extension cords here and there to power anything. 

The dogs love to chew on just about everything, so running an extension cord from the house to the backyard is a non-starter.

(The backyard shed is where I’m doing most of my woodworking.)

Now when I need power I just plug in whatever power tool I’m using into the Bluetti and I’m good to go. 

On a sunny day, it’s making power almost as fast as I’m using it, as you rarely run a power tool for more than a few minutes at a time. It will also charge all the batteries for the cordless tools.

One cool feature is it tells you how long you can run a particular tool or appliance. When the power went out, for example, it would run the Internet Router and WiFi for days and the ditto for the lamp, which uses almost no wattage.

Of course, Bluetti makes bigger units that will run a whole house or big RV. But I bought one of the cheapest options available. 

My only gripe is the solar panels aren’t entirely waterproof. They can get wet, but you can’t leave them out in the rain.

At any rate, I can see this thing being useful for Montanans in a wide variety of ways. 

I bought mine based on a review in Outdoor Life.

Learn more at: bluettipower.com