How do you keep the power on during a Wyoming outage?

Cover the essentials, not the whole house: a fridge (~150W), lights (~50W), router (~10W), and phone charging (~20W) come to roughly 300W of steady draw. A solar generator with about 3kWh of storage — our pick is the Jackery Solar Generator HomePower 3000 — runs that quietly indoors for one to two days, then recharges from its included panels once the storm passes. Keep it topped off from a wall outlet between storms so it's full the moment the grid drops.

Why does Wyoming lose power to wind so often?

Wyoming isn't part of an RTO like SPP or MISO — it runs on the Western grid through Rocky Mountain Power and Black Hills Energy — but the bigger factor is geography. Hurricane-force gusts and ground blizzards along the I-80 corridor between Cheyenne and Laramie regularly take down lines and can leave rural feeders waiting for crews once the interstate reopens. A home battery bridges that wait.

Does Wyoming's strong sun help a solar generator recharge?

Yes. Wyoming has one of the better solar resources in the country — above 5.0 kWh/m2/day around Cheyenne and Laramie — so a solar generator's panels refill it quickly once a storm passes. A HomePower 3000 runs your essentials for one to two days on its own, and that fast daytime recharge is what stretches it across a multi-day Rocky Mountain Power or Black Hills Energy outage.

Is a solar generator better than a gas generator in a Wyoming windstorm?

For home use, yes. A gas generator runs at 60 to 90 decibels, needs stored fuel, and can never run indoors — so someone has to refuel it outside in driving wind and snow. A Jackery LiFePO4 station runs near 30 decibels, produces zero exhaust, is safe inside, and starts at the push of a button even in deep cold.

Best Portable Solar Backup for Wyoming Winter Outages (2026)

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Along the I-80 corridor between Cheyenne and Laramie, the wind doesn’t just blow — it closes the interstate, tips trucks, and drives ground blizzards that reduce visibility to nothing. The same hurricane-force gusts take down power lines, and homes around Casper and across the high plains can go dark in bitter cold while crews wait for conditions to let them work. Wyoming isn’t inside an RTO like SPP or MISO; it runs on the Western grid through Rocky Mountain Power and Black Hills Energy. If you’re comparing Wyoming solar quotes, the detail installers skip is that a grid-tied rooftop system shuts off during an outage (anti-islanding) unless you’ve paired it with storage — that’s the gap you fill for real backup.

Our top pick for most Wyoming homes: the Jackery Solar Generator HomePower 3000. With about 3,072Wh of cold-tolerant LiFePO4 storage and 3,600W of output, it keeps the fridge, lights, Wi-Fi, and phones running for one to two days of a wind or blizzard outage — silently, with zero exhaust, from inside a closed-up house. Wyoming’s strong high-plains sun refills it fast through the included panels once the storm passes.

▶ Get the HomePower 3000 — our pick for Wyoming use code DEAL5

How to keep power on during a Wyoming outage

The reliable approach in Wyoming isn’t powering the whole house — it’s keeping roughly 300W of essentials alive until crews get through:

Size your real loads. A fridge draws about 150W, ten LED bulbs roughly 50W together, a router near 10W, and phone charging about 20W. That core is what keeps food safe and you reachable.
Cover them with a battery station, not an engine. A solar generator with around 3kWh of storage — like the HomePower 3000 above — runs those essentials for one to two days, indoors, at about 30 decibels, with no carbon monoxide. A gas generator has to sit outside in the same wind that caused the outage, and someone has to go refuel it.
Recharge from the sun mid-outage. Wyoming’s solar resource is among the best in the country — above 5.0 kWh/m2/day around Cheyenne and Laramie — so the included folding panels can refill the battery each day the sky is clear, stretching a two-day unit across a longer wait.
Keep it topped off between storms. Charge from a wall outlet when a high-wind warning or winter storm watch is issued, and decide in advance which loads plug in first.

Wind, winter storms, and a rural grid

Other states plan around ice or heat; Wyoming plans around wind — and around distance. Sustained gusts fatigue and snap lines along the I-80 corridor, ground blizzards near Elk Mountain close the interstate that repair crews would use, and an Arctic outbreak can hold the state below zero for days while lines are still down. Off the interstates the problem compounds: Wyoming is the least densely populated state in the lower 48, so Rocky Mountain Power, Black Hills Energy, and the rural electric co-ops that serve ranch country maintain some of the longest line-miles per customer anywhere. A downed feeder near a small town or a ranch outside Casper can sit at the end of the repair queue until roads reopen — which is exactly the wait a charged home battery is for. The good news is that closing that gap is quieter and simpler than it used to be — no gas generator fighting the wind in the driveway.

What you actually need to keep on

Most homes overestimate this. A fridge runs about 150W, ten LED bulbs roughly 50W together, a router near 10W, and phone charging about 20W — near 300W of steady draw to keep the core of a home going. The Solar Generator HomePower 3000 (about 3,072Wh, 3,600W) carries that for one to two days and comes with panels to recharge while the grid is down. Wyoming’s strong solar resource means those panels refill fast the moment the sky clears.

▶ Shop the HomePower 3000 — panels included use code DEAL5

For a larger home or a longer wait

To run a furnace blower and heavier loads through a longer cold-snap outage, the Solar Generator 5000 Plus steps up to 5,040Wh and 7,200W with both 120V and 240V, expandable to 60kWh.

▶ Shop the Solar Generator 5000 Plus — 7,200W, 120V/240V

Sort it out before a high-wind warning is in the forecast, not during the scramble afterward. Keep it charged between systems and decide ahead which loads you’ll plug in first. It’s worth checking current deals before you buy.

▶ See current Jackery deals

Keep reading: Wyoming solar incentives & costs · How to keep power during a South Dakota outage · How to keep power during a Montana outage