Power cuts
What actually stops working, what to own, and the mistake that kills people every winter.
A blackout is not darkness. Darkness is the easy part. What stops is the heating — the pump and controls on an oil or gas boiler are electric — along with water pressure above the second floor, card payments, petrol pumps, the lift, and, within a few hours, the mobile network as the mast batteries run down.
This is the one category where the three countries diverge dramatically in how much they are prepared to tell you. Germany published a fourth edition of its blackout guidance in 2026 that goes into fuel storage limits and transfer switches. Austria covers the basics and warns about cost. Switzerland publishes nothing at all for households on backup power — its material addresses data centres, banks and hospitals. That is an absence we verified, not an oversight, and it should not be read as "you don't need it".
First: information, not light
All three countries put the same item at the top, and it is not a torch. It is a battery or wind-up radio. In a prolonged outage the mobile network goes before the broadcast network does, and radio is how instructions reach you.
Austria names its channel: ORF emergency radio broadcasts around the clock in a blackout. Switzerland requires DAB+ and FM reception, tied to its federal emergency broadcasting system — and notes that every DAB+ radio sold there also receives FM. A car radio works as a fallback in all three.
Then light. Torches with spare batteries, LED lanterns, head torches. Austria is explicit that battery and wind-up lights are the safer choice and that open flame is a fire risk — candles are a backup to the backup, not the plan.
The fridge and freezer clock
Switzerland publishes the only clear numbers: empty the fridge after six hours without power, the freezer after 24 hours. Its federal emergency plan gives a wider range of ten hours to three days depending on the appliance and the outside temperature. Either way the instruction is the same and it is absolute: do not refreeze anything that has thawed.
Cash
Card terminals and cash machines both run on mains power and network. Switzerland gives the most concrete target: enough small notes and coins to pay for a week's shopping and a tank of fuel, and keep the car at least half full. It costs nothing to hold and it is the single most-skipped item on every list.
Generators and power stations — the honest version
Germany's 2026 brochure is the only official document of the three that treats this seriously, and the first rule is the one that matters most.
A combustion generator must never be run indoors. Not in a garage, not in a cellar, not in a doorway. The exhaust causes asphyxiation. It needs a well-ventilated, dry site outdoors. This is the mistake that kills people every winter and it is why this section leads with it rather than with specifications.
The other German rules, in brief. Fuel storage in a cellar is capped at roughly 10 kg of petrol or 20 kg of diesel in suitable containers, and gas may not be stored in cellars at all. Feeding a generator into the house wiring is not a DIY job: it requires an electrician, a manual or automatic transfer switch, a decision between 230 V and 400 V, and notification to your network operator and supplier — and your landlord if you are in a block.
Battery power stations are covered too, in all but name. Germany describes them as short-term energy storage with an inverter, notes the two figures that matter are output power and capacity, and makes the point most owners forget: they self-discharge, so they must be checked and recharged on a schedule or they are flat when needed. Complete units offering 5 V USB or 230 V output are named explicitly.
And the detail that catches out the most people: a rooftop solar installation does not work in a blackout unless it was specifically designed to. Germany's wording is that the system "must be designed for this" — island or black-start capability. A standard grid-tied PV system shuts down with the grid, by design, to protect line workers. If you have panels and assume they cover you, check this before you need to.
Sizing it honestly
| What you want to keep running | What that needs | Approximate cost |
|---|---|---|
| Phones, torches, a radio | Power bank, 20,000 mAh or more | €25–60 |
| Laptop, lights, router, a few hours of a fridge | Battery power station, 500–1,000 Wh | €400–900 |
| Fridge and freezer continuously, for days | Power station 2,000 Wh+ with solar panel | €1,500–3,000 |
| Heating circulation pump and the whole flat | Generator plus electrician and transfer switch | €1,200–4,000 installed |
Austria's assessment of generators is worth repeating because it is unusually frank for an official document: they are "expensive and not suitable for every household". For a flat, the honest answer is usually a power bank and a battery station, not a generator. For a house with its own heating system, the calculation changes — a circulation pump drawing 50 watts is what stands between a working boiler and a cold house, and that is a very small load to cover.
Three things to do this week
1. Buy a battery or wind-up radio and put batteries beside it, not in it. Everything else in this category is optional; this is not.
2. Put €200 to €300 in small notes somewhere in the flat that is not your wallet.
3. If you have solar panels, find out today whether they produce anything when the grid is down. Most people are wrong about this, and the answer determines everything else you should buy.
Sources. Germany: BBK, Stromausfall and the brochure Stromausfall — Vorsorge und Selbsthilfe, 4th edition, 2026. Austria: oesterreich.gv.at, Verhalten bei Blackout. Switzerland: BWL, Kluger Rat — Notvorrat and the Alertswiss emergency plan. Figures checked 31 October 2026.