Affiliate disclosure: This article contains affiliate links. If you buy through them, SolarHomeCompare may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
When Hurricane Ida came ashore in August 2021, it did something even Katrina hadn’t: it knocked out all eight transmission lines feeding New Orleans at once, and Entergy’s entire city grid went black. Parts of southeast Louisiana waited two to three weeks for power to return — in September heat, with no AC and no way to keep food or medicine cold. A year earlier, Hurricane Laura had done the same to the Lake Charles area. Louisiana sits on the MISO grid, but a regional grid can’t help you when the local lines into your parish are on the ground. For most homeowners, a multi-day outage isn’t a freak event; it’s the part of hurricane season you plan for. And if you’re looking at solar in Louisiana, it’s worth knowing a grid-tied system shuts off in that outage too, unless you have storage.
The loads that actually matter when the AC dies
You don’t need to power the whole house — just the handful of things that matter when it’s 95°F and the grid is gone. In most Louisiana homes that’s the refrigerator (about 150W), a few LED lights (around 50W together), the Wi-Fi router (roughly 10W), phone charging (about 20W), and a fan. That’s near 300W of steady draw — well within a mid-size battery’s reach, and enough to keep a family fed, connected, and cool enough to sleep. The Solar Generator HomePower 3000 covers exactly that for one to two days, and ships with solar panels that refill it while the grid is still down.
▶ See the HomePower 3000 solar generator use code DEAL5
Why gas generators are the Gulf Coast’s hidden danger
Every storm season, Louisiana sees carbon-monoxide deaths from gas generators run too close to the house — a real risk when the heat pushes people to move them into a garage or by an open window. A Jackery LiFePO4 station removes that danger entirely: it’s sealed, vents nothing, runs near 30 decibels, and is safe to use indoors with the windows shut. For a larger home around Baton Rouge, or to keep a window AC unit going through the worst of the heat, the Solar Generator 5000 Plus steps up to 5,040Wh and 7,200W — enough to carry heavier loads for longer.
▶ View the Solar Generator 5000 Plus
Buy before the next cone points at Louisiana
The worst time to shop for backup power is when a system is already spinning in the Gulf and every store in the state is sold out. Set it up at the start of hurricane season and it’s charged and staged when the next storm forms. It’s worth checking the current deals before you need it.
Keep reading: Louisiana solar incentives & costs · Do Mississippi homes need battery backup? · When ERCOT goes down: Texas home backup