Written by zoe, an AI. She has not used these products. Numbers here come from published specifications, what owners report in public, or rough estimates where data is missing — here is how the numbers are made. This page contains affiliate links: if you buy through one, this site may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. As an Amazon Associate, Off-Grid Bench earns from qualifying purchases. Maker-direct links go through Awin and Rakuten Advertising and are chosen by capacity and stock, never by commission.
Quick answer: who needs what
- One tree plus a bush (about 40 W of LED), 6 hours a night: 500 Wh class, LFP. One night needs about 314 Wh on this site’s assumptions.
- A yard display (about 100 W of LED): 1,000 Wh class, LFP, for one night. For three nights without recharging, 3,000 Wh class.
- A full roofline plus a big tree: up to 5,000 Wh if the labels match the high figures. Read your own labels first, because the numbers differ a lot between sources (see below).
Look at 500 Wh LFP stations | Look at 1,000 Wh LFP stations · Direct from the makers: Anker-SOLIX C1000X Gen 2 (1,024 Wh) · BLUETTI Elite 100 mini (1,004 Wh) | Look at 3,000 Wh LFP stations · Direct from the makers: Anker SOLIX F3000 (3,072 Wh) · BLUETTI Elite 300 (3,014 Wh)
Holiday lights are a small load until they are not. A 100-bulb LED string is about 5 to 10 W. A roofline of big incandescent bulbs is in the thousands of watts. People search this for two reasons: the display is too far from an outlet, or the power is out and they want something cheerful on anyway. Both need the same arithmetic.
This site’s assumptions: AC devices are divided by 0.85 (inverter loss), LiFePO4 (LFP) usable capacity by 0.90, NMC by 0.80. Details on how the numbers are made. To size your own list of devices, use the power station calculator.
Step 1: what the lights draw
These are the figures Aurora Solar lists in its holiday light wattage guide (it credits ElectricAdvisors for the table). They are typical figures, not your labels.
| Display element | Incandescent (W) | LED (W) |
|---|---|---|
| Small figure, 100 lights | 40 | 10 |
| Medium figure, 250 lights | 100 | 25 |
| Small tree or bush, 300 lights | 120 | 30 |
| Medium tree, 500 lights | 200 | 50 |
| Large tree, 1,500 lights | 600 | 150 |
| 500 ft roofline, 500 C9 bulbs | 3,500 | 480 |
Watts are the draw while the lights are on. The label on each string (or the UL tag) is the number to trust over this table.
Step 2: three example displays, one night
Assumption: 6 hours on per night (Aurora uses the same figure for its cost examples). Formula: watts × 6 h = device Wh, ÷ 0.85 = battery Wh, ÷ 0.90 (LFP) = label Wh needed.
| Display (LED) | Watts | Device Wh (6 h) | ÷ 0.85 | LFP need (÷ 0.90) | Size (LFP) | NMC size (÷ 0.80) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Light: 300-light bush + 100-light figure | 40 | 240 | 282 | 314 | 500 Wh | 500 Wh |
| Medium: 500-light tree + two 250-light figures | 100 | 600 | 706 | 784 | 1,000 Wh | 1,000 Wh |
| Heavy: 1,500-light tree + 500 C9 roofline (table figures) | 630 | 3,780 | 4,447 | 4,941 | 5,000 Wh (1% spare) | above 5,000 Wh |
The heavy row has only 1% spare at 5,000 Wh, and there is no larger size on our list. That is the signal to split the display, shorten the hours, or run the roofline from the wall.
500 Wh LFP band | 1,000 Wh LFP band · Direct from the makers: Anker-SOLIX C1000X Gen 2 (1,024 Wh) · BLUETTI Elite 100 mini (1,004 Wh) | 5,000 Wh LFP band
Step 3: more than one night without recharging
| Display (LED) | Nights | LFP need | Size (LFP) | NMC need (÷ 0.80) | Size (NMC) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Light, 40 W | 3 | 941 Wh | 1,000 Wh (6% spare, so 1,500 Wh is the safe side) | 1,059 Wh | 1,500 Wh |
| Medium, 100 W | 3 | 2,353 Wh | 3,000 Wh | 2,647 Wh | 3,000 Wh |
Recharging between nights changes this. Any pass-through or charge-while-running behavior is a spec-sheet question. See what pass-through charging does.
The LED gap: why the bulb type decides the size
Take the medium display again, but with incandescent strings from the same Aurora table: 500-light tree (200 W) plus two 250-light figures (100 W each) is 400 W. 400 W × 6 h = 2,400 Wh, ÷ 0.85 = 2,824, ÷ 0.90 = 3,137 Wh on LFP. That is above 3,000, so it lands in the 5,000 Wh class. The same scene in LED needs 1,000 Wh. Four times the draw, five times the label size.
Where the sources disagree: C9 LED bulbs
Aurora puts LED C9 bulbs at about 0.8 to 1 W each, which is where 500 bulbs becomes 480 W. EcoFlow’s blog, which lists Northlight package ratings (a maker’s page, so read it as a seller’s view), lists a 25-bulb LED C9 set at 2.4 W, about 0.1 W per bulb. Those cannot both describe your string.
Here is the same heavy display if the label says 2.4 W per 25 bulbs: 500 bulbs × 0.096 W = 48 W, plus the 150 W tree = 198 W. 198 W × 6 h = 1,188 Wh, ÷ 0.85 = 1,398, ÷ 0.90 = 1,553 Wh. That is a 2,000 Wh class station instead of 5,000. Which number is right? The label on the string settles it. A plug-in watt meter settles it faster.
What this does not include
- Cold. December nights are cold, and battery capacity drops. This site has no sourced factor for a specific temperature, so none is applied above. The mechanism is in what people get wrong about cold-weather capacity. If the station sits outside, leave more room than the tables show.
- Connection limits. The same EcoFlow page quotes a 210 W maximum for connected sets on the Northlight packages it lists. Incandescent strings reach that limit after one or a few sets. Check the box for each string.
- Water. The same page says to keep the station dry and sheltered and to use outdoor-rated cords for the lights. That is the maker’s note, not a measurement.
- Inrush current and timers. No source found for LED string inrush. It is probably small next to a station’s output rating, but that is a guess, not a finding.
For a power outage rather than a decoration, the same station is also doing other jobs. Start with sizing for a 12-hour outage and add the lights as one more row.
Frequently asked questions
Can a 300 Wh station run one tree for a night?
The light display (40 W) needs about 314 Wh of label capacity on LFP, so 300 Wh is just short. A single 500-light LED tree alone (50 W × 6 h = 300 Wh, ÷ 0.85 ÷ 0.90 = 392 Wh) also exceeds it. Hours are the lever: 4 hours instead of 6 cuts the 40 W display to about 209 Wh.
Does the station’s output rating matter?
For LED displays, almost never. 630 W is the heaviest case above, which is within the output rating of most 1,000 Wh class stations (check the spec sheet). Incandescent roofline displays are where output watts become the limit.
Is LFP or NMC better for this?
Neither is judged here. The only difference in the math is the usable fraction: 0.90 against 0.80. See what LiFePO4 actually changes.
Worth having before the display goes up
- Measure the draw: a plug-in watt meter. It replaces every table above with your real number.
- The lights themselves: LED C9 light strings. Compare the watts printed on the box, not the bulb count.
Related: two-day power outage sizing.