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Worried about blackouts this winter? It’s no longer just US-style ‘preppers’ who are anxious about having to survive off the electricity grid. Are there any tech-related things that can help? There are indeed. Here are 10 such solutions, from humble power banks to powerful solar panels.

Probably the single most useful device you can have in an outage is a decent, backup powerbank with enough under the hood to power not just portable devices such as phones and laptops but appliances such as internet routers, kettles and microwaves too.

From brands such as Energizer, Jackery and Ecoflow, these are usually marketed as camping accessories and cost anywhere from €350 up to over €1,000.

These come with USB ports and 3-pin plug sockets. Some retailers do combo deals for an extra €100 or so that include a small solar panel accessory to help recharge the device.

If you can’t afford a large portable battery, a smaller cheap one can still be very useful for charging the family’s phones in case of emergencies.

A basic 10,000mAh powerbank from any retailer (DID, Curry’s Harvey Norman, Argos) typically costs around €20 and can fully charge at least two large smartphones from empty. Powerbank generally hold their charges for a long time (months) and usually now come with an indicator light ot tell you what their backup level is.

This is the mother of all responses to energy insecurity, but it’s also the most expensive. Putting your own solar panels on a roof (or fence or wall) guarantees you at least a small amount of energy during most daylight hours, all year round. Adding a backup battery to them means you should never suffer a blackout again, other than a catastrophic national incident that lasts days.

People who are installing solar on their roof tend to put between around five and 15 up. This can vary in cost between €5,000 and €15,000, depending on the number of panels.

There are SEAI grants available, although they’re weighted in favour of older homes. Most people getting solar panels installed will also get what’s called an ‘inverter’, a box that turns the (‘DC’) solar energy into regular (‘AC’) electricity for your fuseboard and house.

These vary in price, but typically cost a home solar user around €1,000 to €1,500. Another recommended accessory is a solar power ‘diverter’, which uses the solar energy to heat water. Myenergy’s ‘Eddi’ box (€500) is a popular choice.

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Remember that solar systems are weak energy generators on rainy, cloudy days and are useless at night. For those who really want to know they’ll have some electricity at all times, backup batteries for solar panels are very effective but very expensive.

Agencies such as Teagasc advise that the cost of a battery typically varies from €4,000 to €8,000 excluding Vat.

If you want to go the whole hog with a backup generator, basic ones start at around €500. One such unit is Honda’s GX200 (€599 from IGE.ie). It will go continuously for 13 hours on a full tank (15 litres) of unleaded petrol. For that, you’ll get two sockets (though you’ll likely need an adaptor for 3-pin) powered by a four-stroke engine. Obviously it’ll need to be placed outside and it will be a little noisy.

Other than the obvious issues, one of the big concerns in a blackout is wifi.

Depending on the extent of the geographical outage, you may or may not still get cellular coverage for your phone from nearby masts. This would potentially affect those using mobile (sim-card) broadband in their home, too.

The prepper’s choice here is probably satellite broadband, which can be switched from the mains to your backup power generator or large battery pack.

For example, most big home backup battery packs will be able to keep Starlink’s system running for at least an hour. Once again, though, this is the dedicated off-grid prepper’s option, as Starlink is way more expensive than any other type of broadband – €500 up front at €85 per month after.

For under €30, there’s a variety of manually-cranked lamps and torches that will hold a light for a short while. For example, Thirfire’s LED camping lantern (€28 from Amazon) will give you up to 40 minutes of light (or up to 18 minutes of brighter light) if you crank it 120 times in a minute.

The same power source can also be used to make it into a phone recharger. If you prefer, you can also recharge the lamp it through a regular charging port, where it will give you up to 4 hours of light.

For those who have an acre or two of land around their home, a domestic wind turbine is a possible source of electricity and is a lot cheaper than solar panels.

Domestic models cost from around €500 from a variety of Irish operators and typically don’t need planning permission if under 10 metres in size and at least 10 metres away from any building or neighbouring property. (They also shouldn’t be considered an unduly visual distraction or create too much noise, as per the regulations.)

When operating with the wind, you can expect them to power most of a typical household’s appliances, although you’ll probably need an inverter accessory.

While wind beats solar in being able to produce power at night, it’s sometimes useless as the wind isn’t guaranteed to blow. Anyone considering one of these as an off-grid backup option should definitely also get a backup battery (which will probably cost more than the turbine).

For some recently-built homes, the water systems are powered by an electrical pump.

When it goes, so does most of the water supply, often including the toilet.

While you’ll often see rainwater harvesting systems in use in tropical islands that have no local freshwater available, it’s rare to see in Ireland. There are a couple of different systems available to a domestic user.

Tanks.ie sells a 1,500-litre gravity-based system that collects, stores and diverts rainwater to a home’s toilets and washing machines.

It’s not going to be the first thing you worry about, but if you simply must have your health and fitness monitored for some reason, Garmin’s Instinct Solar (€399) is about the only solar-power smartwatch that really works indefinitely off its solar panels – it can recharge up to 15pc of its own battery every day from being outside in the sunshine.

Given that it goes for almost a month anyway, you should only need to charge it a handful of times from a wall during the year, making it less of a risk to any blackout.

It’s also a great rugged, waterproof fitness watch with all of the sensors attached for fairly advanced health monitoring.

Yes, it’s back to the 1980s we go with a backup Superser. You may feel like you’re in your granny’s house, but these devices (€150 from Power City) will keep a room tolerably warm. They operate off canisters of butane gas.

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