Top pick
Anker SOLIX C800 — 768Wh at $314, giving about 6 hr 13 min on a 55-inch TV plus a streaming box.
The cheapest unit we track that carries this load with headroom and still finishes the job. Alternatives, and the sizing behind the pick, are below.
Manufacturer price at the time of writing. We may earn a commission, which never changes what the figures say.
The short answer
Almost any power station will run a television. A 55-inch LED set draws about 90W, and a streaming stick or console adds a little on top. The question is not whether a unit can do it but how long it lasts, and that is capacity rather than output.
What it actually draws
- A 55-inch LED television draws roughly 90W. A streaming box adds around 15W, which is where the 105W figure on this page comes from.
- Older plasma sets and very large OLED panels draw considerably more. If your set is over 65 inches, check its label before trusting these numbers.
- Output is not the constraint here. Every unit below starts a television without difficulty, so choose on capacity and price.
Working figure for this page: 105W for a 55-inch TV plus a streaming box, and 500Wh to cover a five-hour evening of television.
What size you need
| If you want | Energy needed | Buy at least |
|---|---|---|
| 4 hours | 420Wh | 500Wh rated |
| 8 hours | 840Wh | 1,000Wh rated |
| 12 hours | 1,260Wh | 1,500Wh rated |
| 24 hours | 2,520Wh | 3,000Wh rated |
The third column adds the 15% the inverter loses turning DC into AC. Buying to the middle column is the most common sizing mistake, and it leaves you short every time.
What to buy
| Model | Capacity | Output | Runtime at 105W | Price | Per Wh |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Anker SOLIX C800 | 768Wh | 1,200W | 6 hr 13 min | $314 | $0.41 |
 BLUETTI AC70 | 768Wh | 1,000W | 6 hr 13 min | $359 | $0.47 |
 ALLPOWERS R1500 LITE | 1,056Wh | 1,600W | 8 hr 33 min | $389 | $0.37 |
 OUPES Mega 1 Lite Home Backup | 1,024Wh | 2,000W | 8 hr 17 min | $489 | $0.48 |
 Jackery Explorer 1000 v2 | 1,070Wh | 1,500W | 8 hr 40 min | $519 | $0.49 |
Cheapest first, one model per brand, filtered to self-contained power stations whose inverter carries this load with headroom to spare and whose battery finishes the job. Expansion batteries are excluded even where the numbers would qualify them, because they do nothing without a host unit. Anything that could not finish the job was left out rather than listed with a warning attached.
Questions
How long will a power station run a TV?
It divides out cleanly: capacity times 0.85, divided by about 105W. A 1,000Wh unit gives roughly eight hours, which is more television than most evenings contain.
Do I need a pure sine wave inverter for a TV?
Yes, and every unit on this page has one. Modified sine wave can produce audible buzz and interference in sensitive electronics, which is why it has largely disappeared from this class of product.
Can it run a TV and a games console?
Yes. A console adds 150W to 200W under load, so the pair sits comfortably under 300W. Runtime roughly halves against the television alone.
How we work these out
Runtimes are capacity multiplied by 0.85 and divided by the load, the same arithmetic used on every review and comparison page on this site, so the numbers agree wherever you meet them. Capacities, outputs and prices are the manufacturers’ own, held in the catalogue of 458 products we track. The load figures are the standard draws this site uses throughout rather than measurements of your particular appliance, so treat them as a starting point and check the label on anything you depend on.