We lost our power for a few days due to a major storm in Kansas. These are nice generators, but an emergency is a real wake up call as to what you'll really need. The 500 is good for running some temporary lights or charging cell phones, maybe running a small power tool for short periods. Will not power a fridge or freezer or anything significant. The 1000 can run a small freezer overnight, but won't do much to power a fridge (The compressor on the fridge when it kicked in would trip the breaker on the 1000 and if you could keep it running, would drain it in an hour or so. Also, if you're relying on solar to recharge, even in direct sunlight (not pictured in this video), it will take most of a day to recharge the 1000. So, you better have a few of the larger Jackery generators so you can always have one or two charging while you're trying to run other things. They will charge up pretty quickly from a gas generator. I'd recommend one or two good gas generators, but my 6000KW gas generator goes through about 5 gals/8hrs. That means you better have a lot of extra gas stored up if you plan to keep your fridges/freezers powered for several days. You need several generators gas/solar if you hope to keep from losing your food and keeping some basic power. One solar generator isn't going to come close to cutting it, especially one of the smaller ones, and they take a long time to charge even in direct sunlight with the solar panels.