How long will a power station run a refrigerator?

Two numbers decide this, and most runtime tables only use the wrong one. A fridge has to be started, which is a surge problem, and then fed, which is an average-draw problem. Here is where all 26 models land on both.

60 W full-size fridge, 24h average

150 W while the compressor runs

900 W needed at startup

9 of 26 clear a full day

Why the usual arithmetic is wrong by about three times

The number on the back of a fridge, and the one most calculators use, is what it draws while the compressor is actually running. The compressor is not running most of the time: it cycles to hold a temperature, and over a day it works roughly a third of the hours. That is why a fridge with 150W on the plate shows up on its EnergyGuide label as something like 500 kWh a year — divide by the 8,760 hours in a year and the honest average is about 57W.

Feed the plate figure into a runtime calculation and you get an answer roughly three times too pessimistic. Feed in the average and forget the surge, and you get a unit that cannot start the thing at all. The table below keeps the two apart.

Our own model pages are deliberately conservative. The runtime tables on each station use a continuous 150W for a full-size refrigerator, which is the worst case rather than the expected one. This page uses the duty-cycled average instead — both numbers are honest, they just answer different questions.

Every model, started and fed

Runtime at the 24-hour average draw: mini fridge 25W, full-size refrigerator 60W, chest freezer 50W. "Starts it?" compares the station's surge rating against the compressor's inrush.

Model	Capacity	Surge	Starts a full-size fridge?	Mini fridge	Full-size refrigerator	Chest freezer
EcoFlow RIVER 3	245 Wh	600 W	No	8.3 hours	—	—
EcoFlow RIVER 2	256 Wh	600 W	No	8.7 hours	—	—
Bluetti EB3A	268 Wh	1,200 W	Yes	9.1 hours	3.7 hours	4.5 hours
Anker SOLIX C300	288 Wh	600 W	No	9.7 hours	—	—
Jackery Explorer 300	293 Wh	500 W	No	9.9 hours	—	—
Goal Zero Yeti 500X	505 Wh	1,200 W	Yes	17 hours	7.1 hours	8.5 hours
EcoFlow RIVER 2 Max	512 Wh	1,000 W	Yes	17 hours	7.2 hours	8.7 hours
Bluetti EB70S	716 Wh	1,400 W	Yes	24 hours	10 hours	12 hours
EcoFlow RIVER 2 Pro	768 Wh	1,600 W	Yes	26 hours	10 hours	13 hours
Bluetti AC70	768 Wh	2,000 W	Yes	26 hours	10 hours	13 hours
EcoFlow DELTA 2	1,024 Wh	2,700 W	Yes	34 hours	14 hours	17 hours
EcoFlow DELTA 3 Plus	1,024 Wh	3,600 W	Yes	34 hours	14 hours	17 hours
DJI Power 1000	1,024 Wh	2,600 W	Yes	34 hours	14 hours	17 hours
Anker SOLIX C1000	1,056 Wh	2,400 W	Yes	35 hours	14 hours	17 hours
Jackery Explorer 1000 v2	1,070 Wh	3,000 W	Yes	36 hours	15 hours	18 hours
Bluetti AC180	1,152 Wh	2,700 W	Yes	39 hours	16 hours	19 hours
Goal Zero Yeti 1500X	1,516 Wh	3,500 W	Yes	2.1 days	21 hours	25 hours
Jackery Explorer 2000 Plus	2,042 Wh	6,000 W	Yes	2.8 days	28 hours	34 hours
EcoFlow DELTA 2 Max	2,048 Wh	4,800 W	Yes	2.9 days	29 hours	34 hours
Bluetti AC200L	2,048 Wh	3,600 W	Yes	2.9 days	29 hours	34 hours
Anker SOLIX F2000 (767)	2,048 Wh	3,600 W	Yes	2.9 days	29 hours	34 hours
Bluetti Elite 200 V2	2,073 Wh	5,200 W	Yes	2.9 days	29 hours	35 hours
Jackery Explorer 3000 Pro	3,024 Wh	6,000 W	Yes	4.2 days	42 hours	2.1 days
EcoFlow DELTA Pro	3,600 Wh	7,200 W	Yes	5.1 days	2.1 days	2.5 days
Anker SOLIX F3800	3,840 Wh	9,000 W	Yes	5.4 days	2.2 days	2.7 days
EcoFlow DELTA Pro 3	4,096 Wh	8,000 W	Yes	5.8 days	2.4 days	2.9 days

The ones that cannot: EcoFlow RIVER 3 (600W surge), EcoFlow RIVER 2 (600W surge), Anker SOLIX C300 (600W surge), Jackery Explorer 300 (500W surge). Each of them will run a mini fridge; none has the headroom for a full-size compressor, whatever its watt-hours suggest.

Sizing for an actual outage

An evening, four to six hours. Anything that clears the surge test above. At 60W average you are spending roughly 300Wh.
A full day. 9 models manage 24 hours on the fridge alone, the cheapest of them the Bluetti Elite 200 V2 at $1,099 ($0.53/Wh).
Two days or more. Only 3 models: EcoFlow DELTA Pro, Anker SOLIX F3800, EcoFlow DELTA Pro 3. Below that capacity, add solar instead of battery.

The smallest unit in the database that can start a full-size fridge at all is the Bluetti EB3A: 268Wh, 1,200W surge, 3.7 hours of fridge.

Three ways this goes wrong in practice

The duty cycle is not a constant

A third of the time is a kitchen in normal conditions. A hot room, a full load of warm groceries, or a door opened every ten minutes pushes the compressor towards half the time or more, and the runtimes above drop with it.

The surge is not on the spec sheet you are reading

Fridge manufacturers rarely print inrush current. Two to three times running watts is the working assumption; older compressors and cheap chest freezers can be worse. If a unit is borderline in the table above, treat it as a no.

The station spends power on itself

Inverter, display and fans keep drawing while the compressor rests, and on a day-long run that overhead is not a rounding error. It is also why running the fridge in bursts beats leaving everything on: you switch off the station's own consumption along with the fridge's.

How we calculated this

Capacity × 85% inverter efficiency ÷ average draw. Average draws are the middle of the published ranges for each appliance class, and the start test compares the station's rated surge against two to three times the appliance's running wattage. These are estimates from specifications rather than measurements on a bench — your fridge's EnergyGuide label will beat our average every time, and it is the number worth using.

FAQ

How many watts does a refrigerator really use?

Two different numbers, and mixing them up is what produces wrong runtimes. While the compressor runs, a full-size fridge pulls 100–200W; averaged over a day it is closer to 40–75W, because the compressor only runs about a third of the time. Take the kWh/year figure off the EnergyGuide label and divide by 8,760 to get your own fridge’s average.

Why does my power station trip when the fridge kicks in?

Startup surge. A compressor draws two to three times its running wattage for a second or two at every restart, so a fridge that runs at 150W can demand 600–900W the instant it starts. A station whose surge rating sits below that will fault even though the running load fits comfortably.

Can I run a fridge and other things at the same time?

Watch the surge, not the average. Leave headroom above your other loads for the compressor’s restart — if a kettle and the fridge coincide on a small unit, the fridge is what trips it.

Should I run the fridge continuously during an outage?

Usually not. A closed fridge holds temperature for about four hours and a full freezer for a day or more, so running the pack in bursts — an hour or two every few hours — stretches the same battery much further than leaving it plugged in the whole time. Door discipline does more than capacity.

Does a solar panel change the picture?

It changes it more here than anywhere else, because a fridge is a small steady load and a panel is a small steady supply. A few hundred watts of panel in decent sun covers a full-size fridge’s average draw outright and turns a one-day pack into an indefinite one, as long as the sun keeps coming back.

Appliance figures compiled from manufacturer documentation and EnergyGuide labelling; station specifications come from each manufacturer's own documentation — see the database and methodology. Spotted an error? We correct listings within 24 hours.