Don’t panic! How to be a practical prepper for a power cut

If things weren’t tough enough already, the government is now warning us that we need to boost our “personal resilience” for when they run out of power. No, not Rishi Sunak’s personal supply, but the stuff that keeps the lights on.

Giving the first of what is promised to be an annual update to MPs on the government’s national risk and resilience strategy, the deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden, warned that in a world where cyberattacks and climate-related emergencies are rife, the power we rely on could be taken offline in an instant. “It could be tomorrow that one of these things hits,” he said.

A resilience website will soon be launched to advise us on how to survive in the event of mass power cuts and internet outages. In the interim, here’s our guide to practical prepping.

How do you get around and pay for things?

Remember cash? These days physical money changes hands in only 15 per cent of transactions, according to UK Finance, but if the power goes, the card machines we tap our debit and credit cards on in shops won’t work, so it’s probably best to keep an emergency stash of it to hand. That jar of loose change has less money in it than you think.

While your cards are working, you’ll need matches to spark your gas hob and candles, and you might want to buy some blankets and nonperishable essentials. A trip to the petrol station is also in order — if you’re the owner of one of the 858,000 solely electric vehicles in the UK that the RAC says are out there, you might be stymied.

How do you communicate?

In the event that the internet goes out, it’s not just your ability to scroll mindlessly through TikTok that could be affected. You might not be able to phone a friend to see how they’re doing.

Telephone providers are in the process of switching over from copper wires to digital services powered by VoIP (voice over internet protocol) technology — the same kind of thing that powers Skype. VoIP services provide clearer calls but — speaking from first-hand experience as one of those already switched over by BT to their Digital Voice service — when the power goes out, so does your phone line. Your provider will have contacted you to say you’re switching, so if you haven’t heard from it you’re safe.

Tweeting out into the void “what just happened?” will always be a core human requirement, no matter how much Elon Musk tries to spoil our fun, and without the ability to natter on the landline you’ll want to log on to social media. Your wi-fi router will be kaput, so to stay online you will need to switch to using mobile data on your smartphone. The networks, though, will become less reliable as usage spikes (think about how your signal can be patchy when you’re in busy spaces and multiply that as everyone tries to log on).

To reduce the speed at which the power drains on your device, take a minute to turn off all those extraneous services, such as GPS, Bluetooth and the wi-fi on your phone. If you don’t your phone will try to ping routers and other devices it can’t connect to, draining the battery more quickly. You can boost the lifespan of your devices with a battery pack. Which? recommends the INIU Power Bank 22.5W Fast Charging 20,000mAh, which is £29.99, and is good for three charges of the latest iPhone — provided you charged up the power bank when you had electricity, of course.

How do you to stay warm?

“Break it down into priorities,” the survival expert John Hudson says. “The first priority is your own health, your first aid and your warmth.” Check torches have batteries, Hudson advises. If you’re entirely reliant on electricity, minimise your heat loss. A single candle can provide warmth in a smaller space. “Wear lots of clothes too,” he says.

When it comes to heating, we’re divided into the haves and have-nots. If you have a smart thermostat, it might stop connecting to your boiler because it’s wi-fi and power-connected. “Where we’re coming into this age of smart-home tech, we’ll feel it more than ever when the electricity goes out,” says Lewis Painter of Trusted Reviews, who found that his smart doorbell went offline during a recent power cut, as well as his smart lightbulb system.

How do you eat?

By now, potentially shorn of the latest Taylor Swift gossip on Instagram or rationing it to eke out a failing battery, you might be in an existential crisis spiral. Your thoughts may turn to comfort eating. But be careful as you reach for the fridge: every time you open the door will impact its internal temperature. That said, any outage is more likely to last hours than days.

“A power cut won’t instantly mean your fridge or freezer loses its temperature,” the food safety expert Jenna Brown says. Chilled food is safe for at least four hours out of refrigeration. “If you keep it in the fridge, and the fridge was pretty cold to begin with, keep the doors shut and you should get another hour or two on top.” After that point, move perishable food to the freezer to keep it chilled a bit longer, or eat it.

Decide on what you’re keeping in the fridge and what you’re keeping out, however, and stick with it. Brown recommends taking water and milk out at the start of a power cut to maintain the fridge’s temperature (if the weather drops below 5C, your doorstep will be an effective alternative).

Depending on how full your freezer is, food in there will still be fine for up to 48 hours (the fuller the freezer, the longer it’ll stay frozen). If you have an electric oven, microwave or air fryer, it won’t work — unless you’ve invested in a portable power station. The EcoFlow Delta 2 provides 1,800W of AC output to up to 13 devices and can power more than 90 per cent of all appliances, including microwaves, kettles and laptops. The good news is that it can be recharged using solar power. The bad? It’s on offer at £799.

“Our homes editor managed to run his 55in TV soundbar, his Sky Q Mini box, a coffee maker and a breadmaker on it, and still have charge left,” Painter says. Don’t try an oven with it, though. Kettles are also tricky: they often run at about 2,400W.

Hudson has experienced a three-day power outage at his home. He utilised his log burner to cook food. “It doesn’t have to be hardship,” he says. But be aware of issues: ventilate your rooms to avoid carbon monoxide poisoning. And also bear in mind you can survive for many days without hot food. “You’re not going to starve,” Hudson says. “It’s mostly about keeping your chin up for morale.”

How do you keep entertained?

Bad news: your TV will be down thanks to that plug into the wall, but Netflix and iPlayer might keep going through mobile data on your laptop, phone or iPad. You can tether other devices to your mobile internet connection, but beware racking up a hefty bill, as the MSP Michael Matheson, who had to pay £11,000 on behalf of his sons, knows all too well. Netflix accessed through a mobile device will give you four hours of viewing per gigabyte, while on a web browser it can be up to 3GB an hour.

Instead, listen. A battery-powered radio, like the JBL Tuner 2 (£79), will prove handy — but bear in mind you may only be able to access FM stations, in the worst-case scenario with just BBC Radio 2 and 4 broadcasting.

“Your best advice is probably just chill out and read a book,” Hudson says. “Why not take advantage of it as a bit of enforced downtime?”