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In February 2011, a brutal cold snap froze natural-gas supply across New Mexico and forced rolling blackouts through communities like Española and Taos — homes lost heat in single-digit cold, some for hours at a stretch. New Mexico runs no regional grid operator; PNM and El Paso Electric manage their own systems on the Western grid, which means the state’s power has to hold up against extremes at both ends of the calendar. Winter can pull the rug out the way 2011 did, and summer high-desert heat over Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Las Cruces can turn a daytime outage into a safety problem within hours. If you’re already comparing New Mexico solar quotes, know that a grid-tied rooftop system shuts off during any outage (anti-islanding rules) unless you also have storage — panels alone won’t carry you through.
The February 2011 lesson: heat you can’t lose
What made 2011 dangerous wasn’t just the darkness, it was the cold. A gas furnace still needs electricity for its blower and controls, so when the grid drops in a freeze, the heat stops even while the gas keeps flowing. That’s the load a backup unit has to protect first in a New Mexico winter. The HomePower 3000 runs a furnace’s blower plus the fridge, Wi-Fi, and lights for one to two days, with about 3,072Wh and 3,600W output, and it ships with solar panels that recharge it in the strong winter sun between storms.
▶ See the HomePower 3000 solar generator use code DEAL5
For a larger Rio Rancho or Santa Fe home, or a heavier heating load, the Solar Generator 5000 Plus steps up to 5,040Wh and 7,200W with both 120V and 240V, expandable to 60kWh — enough to carry a furnace blower and several rooms at once, or absorb the surge of bigger appliances.
▶ View the Solar Generator 5000 Plus
Summer is the other half
The same house that needs heat in February needs cooling in July. The HomePower 3600 Plus handles that year-round middle ground: 3,584Wh, 3,600W, expandable to 21kWh, and able to tie into your circuits through a transfer switch. It can run a window or portable AC in a Las Cruces heat wave, or the essentials and furnace fan in a Santa Fe cold snap, without wiring in a whole-home system.
▶ Check the HomePower 3600 Plus
Because every Jackery here is LiFePO4, near-silent at about 30 decibels, and vents nothing, it’s safe to run indoors in a sealed room — which counts as much in a Taos freeze as in a Roswell summer. The included panels also make these units practical in New Mexico specifically: with some of the strongest sun in the country, a unit that recharges by day can bridge an outage that runs longer than PNM or El Paso Electric first estimated. Not sure which size fits? List what has to stay on, add up the watts, and match it to a unit with headroom.
▶ Compare all Jackery home backup options
Keep reading: New Mexico solar incentives & costs · Jackery HomePower comparison for Phoenix homes · Best solar generators for home backup (Nevada)