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Generator or Home Battery for an Illinois Winter Outage? A 22 kW Generator Burns About $33 to $53 of Gas a Day
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Generator or Home Battery for an Illinois Winter Outage? A 22 kW Generator Burns About $33 to $53 of Gas a Day

Ryan Cook•

A whole-house standby generator burns about 57 therms of natural gas a day at half load, which works out to roughly $33 a day on Nicor Gas and $50 to $53 a day on Peoples Gas or Ameren Illinois gas at October 2026 prices. A 13.5 kWh home battery burns nothing, but it holds about a night's worth of the basics and needs the sun or the grid to refill. For most gas-heated Illinois homes the battery covers the outage you'll actually get. The generator earns its keep in multi-day ice storms, in homes with electric heat, and on rural feeders that stay down. Everything below is an estimate built from spec sheets and published rates, not a quote for your house.

I get this question every fall, usually from someone who just watched the neighbor's generator kick on while their own house went dark. Both machines solve the problem. They solve it at very different prices, and the right one depends on how you heat your house more than anything else.

The Short Version, in Numbers

What Figure Source and date
Generac Guardian 22 kW, natural gas use 228 cu. ft. per hour at half load, 327 at full load Generac spec sheet, rev. March 2022
Same unit, output 19,500 W on natural gas, 22,000 W on propane Generac spec sheet
Same unit, propane use 2.53 gal. per hour at half load, 3.90 at full load Generac spec sheet
Same unit, price MSRP starting at $6,979 with whole-house switch, before installation Generac product page, accessed Oct. 3, 2026
Tesla Powerwall 3 13.5 kWh, up to 11.5 kW continuous, rated -4°F to 122°F Tesla 2025 datasheet
Enphase IQ Battery 5P 5.0 kWh usable, 3.84 kVA continuous Enphase data sheet, May 2025
Illinois outage minutes per customer, 2024 158 with major storms, 59 without (U.S.: 662.6 and 131.6) EIA Electric Power Annual
Average length of an outage once it starts, 2024 Ameren Illinois 191 minutes, ComEd 206 minutes ICC annual report, Jan. 2026
Utility battery rebate $300 per kWh of storage, through Dec. 31, 2029 220 ILCS 5/16-107.6

The most important row is the outage one. The average Illinois customer was without power for about two and a half hours in all of 2024, counting major storms. The national figure was about 11 hours, pushed up by Hurricanes Beryl, Helene and Milton. Illinois outages are mostly an evening, not a week. The Illinois Commerce Commission's numbers say the same thing another way: once an outage starts, the average one lasted a little over three hours on both Ameren and ComEd in 2024.

Averages hide the bad years, though. Ameren's average outage ran 428 minutes in 2023, over seven hours, and anyone on a rural line in central Illinois remembers an ice storm that took days. Decide which of those two outages you're buying for before you buy anything.

What a Generator Costs to Run Here

Generac publishes fuel use at half and full load, nothing lighter. I use half load, about 9,750 watts on natural gas, as the planning number for a whole-house unit carrying a furnace, refrigerator, sump pump, lights and a few circuits. A lightly loaded generator should burn less than this, but the spec sheet doesn't say how much less, so read the table as a ceiling for a day of running.

Gas utility (October 2026) Delivery + supply per therm Half load, per hour Half load, per 24 hours Full load, per 24 hours
Nicor Gas 57.44¢ about $1.36 about $33 about $47
Peoples Gas (Chicago) 87.67¢ about $2.07 about $50 about $71
Ameren Illinois gas 93.58¢ about $2.21 about $53 about $76

Those figures use Nicor's Rate 1 distribution charge of 24.44¢ plus its 33¢ October supply cost; Peoples' 46.583¢ distribution, 8.257¢ storage and 32.83¢ October gas charge; and Ameren's 48.344¢ distribution plus its 45.235¢ October gas charge. The Nicor and Peoples supply figures assume you buy gas from the utility rather than a supplier. Taxes, smaller per-therm riders and your monthly customer charge come on top, but you'd pay the customer charge anyway.

Three days at half load on Ameren gas runs about $159. That's real money, but it isn't what kills the generator math. The machine sits idle 360-plus days a year and still needs care. Generac's spec sheet lists a five-minute exercise run every other week (weekly or monthly are selectable), which by my math burns under $5 of gas a year even at the half-load rate. The bigger cost is service. Generac's own maintenance guide says units that operate in cold environments below 40°F need an oil and filter change every year or every 100 hours, which describes every Illinois winter.

On propane the same unit burns about 61 gallons a day at half load. Rural Ameren customers without a gas line should do that math against the tank they already have and what the propane dealer charges in January, because that's when the tank runs low.

What a Battery Actually Covers

A battery is a tank, not a fuel line. The Tesla Powerwall 3 holds 13.5 kWh and can push up to 11.5 kW at once. I sized the loads in detail in the battery sizing guide; here's the winter version.

With gas heat, one battery handles a normal Illinois outage. The furnace only needs power for the blower and controls. Fall River Electric, a rural co-op, lists furnace blowers at 700 to 800 running watts in its generator sizing guide, and newer variable-speed blowers often draw less. Add a refrigerator, lights, internet and the sump pump, and a 13.5 kWh battery wakes up the next morning with charge left. For the 59 to 158 minutes the average Illinois customer lost in 2024, it barely notices.

With electric heat, a battery buys you about an hour. The Silicon Valley Power appliance chart puts an electric furnace at 10.5 kWh per hour with the fan running. That empties 13.5 kWh in roughly an hour and twenty minutes. No home battery I'd sell carries resistance heat through a January night. If that's your house, keep reading the generator section, or check whether the ComEd electric space heat rate and a heat pump change your plans first.

Solar is what turns a battery into multi-day backup. On their own, grid-tied panels go dark in an outage; the Department of Energy notes they're "designed to switch off if the grid power cuts out." With a battery they keep running. A 7.5 kW system averages an estimated 14.3 kWh a day from December through February in Chicago and about 17.1 kWh in Belleville, enough on an average winter day to refill one battery. The catch is the word average. A gray week or panels buried in snow can produce close to nothing, and an ice storm doesn't wait for a sunny week.

Cold matters too, but less than people think. Tesla rates the Powerwall 3 to operate down to -4°F. Enphase lists 32°F to 86°F as the IQ 5P's optimum range, so a garage or basement install is smarter than a north wall in Rockford.

The Upfront Side

Generac lists the 22 kW Guardian at an MSRP starting at $6,979 for the unit. That model is sold with a whole-house transfer switch, but the electrician, the concrete pad, the gas line, and the permit don't, so get a local installed quote before you compare.

Battery pricing is harder to pin down from a primary source. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's August 2026 data update found that median cash prices for residential solar-plus-storage ran $2.1 per watt higher than solar alone in 2025, with a median battery of 13.5 kWh and a median system of 7.7 kW. Multiplying those two medians gives roughly $16,000 for the battery, which is my math, not the lab's, and the lab notes about 80% of that pricing data comes from California. ComEd and Ameren Illinois both pay $300 per kWh of storage, about $4,050 on a 13.5 kWh battery, which brings that rough figure near $12,000 before anything else. The rebate has strings: both utilities now require the battery to enroll in a virtual power plant program, ComEd also requires a time-varying supply rate for the life of the battery, and Ameren's solar page still says a rebated battery must be charged by on-site renewables like your panels. I covered both in the battery rebate breakdown.

The difference that matters to me is what each one does on the other 360 days. A generator only pays you back during a blackout. A battery tied to solar works every day, storing your own production and feeding the house in the evening. On the 25-year solar leases I sell, a battery is included, so backup comes with the panels instead of as a separate check.

Safety Isn't a Footnote

The Consumer Product Safety Commission's May 2026 report calls generators "the single product under CPSC's jurisdiction that is associated with the most CO deaths," an estimated annual average of 98 deaths from 2020 to 2022. Over the same years, 59% of all non-fire carbon monoxide deaths tied to consumer products happened in November through February, Illinois outage season. The CDC says to use one only outside, "more than 20 feet away from any windows, doors, and vents," never in a garage, even with the door open.

A permanently installed standby unit is a different machine. Generac's spec sheet allows the Guardian to sit as close as 18 inches from the house, subject to local code. Illinois law, 430 ILCS 135/10, already requires a carbon monoxide alarm within 15 feet of every bedroom. Make sure yours has a battery backup, because a hard-wired alarm without one goes quiet in the same outage that started the generator.

A battery has none of that risk. No exhaust, no fuel on site, and nothing to start.

My Take

If you heat with gas and live in town, buy for the outage Illinois actually has: a few hours, a few times a year. One battery, ideally paired with solar, covers that quietly, and it earns its keep on the days the grid is fine. If you heat with electricity, run a well pump on a rural Ameren line, or you're still thinking about the last ice storm, a natural gas standby generator is the better backup. At about $33 to $53 a day in fuel, it's a reasonable price for heat in a three-day outage.

Plenty of rural homes end up with both, a battery for the everyday flickers and a generator for the rare long one. That's not overkill if the long ones are what you've lived through. For the bigger picture on whether Illinois is headed for more outages, I wrote up the rolling blackout question separately, and the short answer is less dramatic than the headlines.

Get Your Own Numbers

Run your bill through the savings calculator to see what solar with a battery looks like on a lease or a purchase, or call me at (618) 217-2001. Tell me how you heat and how long your last outage lasted, and I'll tell you honestly whether a battery covers you or whether you need a generator. You can also send a bill through the contact page.

Sources

Frequently Asked Questions

For most gas-heated Illinois homes, a battery covers the outages that actually happen, and a generator is the better tool only for long outages or electric heat. The U.S. Energy Information Administration puts the average Illinois customer at 158 minutes without power in 2024 including major storms, and 59 minutes without them. One 13.5 kWh battery runs a refrigerator, lights, internet and a gas furnace blower through a night like that with room to spare, makes no noise, and needs no fuel. A whole-house standby generator wins when the outage runs for days, when the house heats with electricity, or when a well pump and sump pump both have to keep running on a rural feeder. A Generac 22 kW unit puts out 19,500 watts on natural gas, which is far more than any single home battery, but it burns about 57 therms a day at half load. Both are estimates for a typical home; your bill and your heating type decide it.
About 57 therms a day at half load for a 22 kW standby unit, which is roughly $33 to $53 a day on Illinois gas rates in October 2026. Generac's spec sheet lists its Guardian 22 kW at 228 cubic feet of natural gas per hour at half load and 327 at full load. Using the EIA's 2025 average of about 1,037 Btu per cubic foot, that's about 2.4 therms an hour at half load and 3.4 at full load. At October 2026 delivery plus supply prices, half load costs an estimated $1.36 an hour on Nicor Gas, $2.07 on Peoples Gas and $2.21 on Ameren Illinois gas, before taxes and smaller per-therm riders. Generac only publishes half and full load figures, so a lightly loaded generator should burn less than this, by an amount the spec sheet doesn't state. Treat these numbers as a planning ceiling for a day of running, not a quote.
Yes if it's a gas furnace, and no for long if your heat is electric. A gas furnace only needs electricity for the blower and controls. A rural electric co-op's generator sizing guide lists furnace blowers at 700 to 800 running watts, and modern variable-speed blowers often draw less. One 13.5 kWh battery like a Tesla Powerwall 3, rated for up to 11.5 kW of continuous output, carries that blower plus the refrigerator, lights and internet through a cold night with energy left over. Electric resistance heat is a different story. The Silicon Valley Power appliance chart puts an electric furnace at 10.5 kWh per hour with the fan running, so the same 13.5 kWh battery would last only about an hour and twenty minutes. If your home heats with electricity and you want heat through a multi-day outage, a generator or a second heat source is the honest answer. These are estimates.
Yes, and Illinois law already requires one in most homes whether you own a generator or not. The Illinois Carbon Monoxide Alarm Detector Act, 430 ILCS 135/10, says every dwelling unit needs at least one approved carbon monoxide alarm within 15 feet of every room used for sleeping, and battery-powered or battery-backup alarms qualify. That backup matters, because a hard-wired alarm without a battery goes dark in the same outage that started the generator. Generators are the single consumer product most associated with carbon monoxide deaths, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission's May 2026 report, with an estimated annual average of 98 deaths from 2020 to 2022, and 59 percent of all non-fire carbon monoxide deaths tied to consumer products in those years happened in November through February. The CDC says to run a generator only outside, more than 20 feet from windows, doors and vents, never in a garage.

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