Calculating energy needed for medical devices…

What we need is some empirical data!

Hey Mike,

I'm looking for a backup power source for my oxygen concentrator. It’s rated at 3amps @ 120volts. I need to be able to provide at least 24 hours service. My power provider has had two 24 hour outages lately and that causes me problems. I purchased a TrippLite 1500 VA UPS system but it only provides 15 minutes of backup? - Frank

Dear Frank,

What’s the brand and model of your oxygen concentrator? And are you sure it uses 3 amps of current continuously?

In order to answer your question you need to measure the actual kWh usage for a 24-hour period. Then I can help you pick a solution.

How to measure kWh…

The easiest way to do this is to get something like this power meter to measure energy usage and run your oxygen concentrator for 24-hours. You plug this into the wall, then plug your Oxygen concentrator into it. In the next day you’ll be able to read exactly how many kWh (killowatt hours) of energy it used. And from that piece of data we can then select the appropriate backup power supply. I’m guessing that a Jackery, Southwire or Bluetti power station would do the trick. But there’s no way to know for sure until we get some actual data from a field measurement (empirical data)

This should work, and it’s available on Amazon HERE.

Everyone, please try this yourself…

If you have a medical device like a CPAP machine or Oxygen concentrator and have any kind of Kill-O-Watt meter, please measure the kWh usage over a 24-hour period and post it below, along with the brand and model of your medical device. Then we’ll all learn something….

Let’s play safe out there - Mike