How many watts does a pellet stove use?
A pellet stove uses about 100 watts while running, and most units land somewhere between 50 and 200 watts depending on size, heat setting, and fan speed. Small stoves on a low setting have been measured drawing as little as 64 to 79 watts, while a large high-output model running hard can reach 200 to 400 watts. The reason the number is so low is the same reason a gas furnace draws only its blower watts: the fuel does the heating. The pellets burning in the pot supply the heat, and electricity just moves pellets and air.
Startup is the one moment a pellet stove pulls real power. The igniter draws 300 to 500 watts to light the pellets, and because the blowers and auger are running at the same time, the total draw at the start of a cycle can briefly hit 600 to 800 watts on some models. That spike only lasts a few minutes until the fire catches, after which the igniter shuts off and the stove settles back to its ~100-watt running draw for as long as it burns.
Every pellet stove plugs into a standard 120-volt household outlet, so at roughly 100 watts it pulls under one amp while running and only a few amps at ignition. Ratings vary by model, so treat these as planning ranges and check the nameplate or manual for your exact stove. To see how that load stacks up against the rest of your home, run the numbers through the solar panel calculator or the how many watts to run a house breakdown.
What draws the power in a pellet stove?
Four parts use the electricity, and together they add up to roughly 100 watts. The auger motor that feeds pellets from the hopper into the burn pot uses only about 50 watts and runs in short pulses. The combustion (exhaust) blower that pulls air through the fire and pushes exhaust out the vent uses about 150 to 175 watts on a larger stove, and the convection (room) blower that sends warm air into the room uses about 150 to 165 watts. The control board and sensors use just a few watts.
Those component numbers come from a full-size stove running its fans up; add them straight across and you get a few hundred watts, which is why high-output models on high sit near the top of the range. On a typical stove at a moderate setting the fans run slower and the real running draw clusters down around 100 watts. The one part that is not in the running total is the igniter at 300 to 500 watts, because it only fires at the start of a burn and then switches off.
This is the honest picture of a pellet stove's electricity: a small motor, two fans, a circuit board, and a short igniter burst. None of it is heat. Compare that to an electric space heater at 1,500 watts or an electric furnace at 10,000 to 20,000 watts, where the electricity *is* the heat, and the difference is the whole point: a pellet stove buys you serious warmth on a fan's worth of power because the pellets carry the energy.
How much does it cost to run a pellet stove?
The electricity to run a pellet stove costs very little, roughly $10 to $25 a month depending on the stove and how many hours it burns. At about 100 watts running continuously, a stove uses around 2.4 kWh a day, which at the 2026 US average near $0.17 per kWh is about 40 cents a day, or close to $12 a month. A large stove drawing closer to 200 watts around the clock lands nearer the top of that range. Either way the electricity is a minor line on the bill; you can confirm the math with the watts to kWh guide.
The real cost of a pellet stove is the pellets, not the power. A stove burns roughly 1 to 2 pounds of pellets an hour, so a 40-pound bag lasts about a day of moderate burning, and a household using a pellet stove as a main heat source goes through a ton or more over a winter. That fuel cost is what you compare against natural gas, propane, or electric heat, and it is a separate number from the electricity.
So when someone asks whether a pellet stove runs up the electric bill, the answer is no. The igniter and blowers are cheap to run, and a pellet stove is nowhere near the big electricity users in a home like the water heater, an electric dryer, or central heating and cooling. Treat these as estimates that move with your electric rate and usage, not a quote.
Does a pellet stove work in a power outage?
No. A pellet stove will not run during a power outage, because every working part of it needs electricity: the auger cannot feed pellets, the blowers cannot move air, and the igniter cannot light the next load. Worse, if the power cuts out while a fire is burning, the exhaust blower stops too, and smoke that should be pushed out the vent can back up into the room until the fire dies down. This is the pellet stove's one real weakness as a heat source.
It is the opposite of a wood stove, which uses no electricity at all and keeps throwing heat through any outage. If riding out a multi-day winter outage with zero power is the priority, a wood stove is the more resilient choice. A pellet stove trades that independence for convenience: a hopper you fill once or twice a day, a thermostat, cleaner and more efficient burning, and no splitting or hauling logs.
The saving grace is that the load you need to back up is tiny. Because a pellet stove runs on only ~100 watts, with a short 300 to 500-watt igniter spike, it is one of the easiest heating appliances in the house to keep alive on backup power. A small battery, a solar generator, or a modest inverter generator can carry it, which is not remotely true of an electric furnace or a wall of space heaters.
What size generator or battery runs a pellet stove?
Almost any backup source has the capacity to run a pellet stove, because it needs only about 100 watts running and a 500 to 800-watt surge at ignition. A small 1,000 to 2,000-watt inverter generator runs one with room to spare, and on battery a 1 kWh power station runs a pellet stove for roughly 8 to 10 hours, with a 2 to 3 kWh unit getting you through a night and into the next day. The what a 100Ah battery can run breakdown shows how that runtime math works for a load this size.
The catch is not size, it is power quality. A pellet stove's control board is sensitive, and the dirty, choppy output of a cheap conventional generator can make the stove misbehave or damage the electronics. Run it from an inverter generator (which produces clean power) or, if you only have a conventional generator, add a power conditioner. On a battery setup, use a pure sine wave inverter rather than a modified sine unit, for the same reason; the pure sine vs modified sine comparison explains why the control board cares.
A common setup is a battery backup or UPS wired to the stove that switches over instantly when the grid drops, holding the stove through a short outage or bridging the gap until a generator starts. Whatever you use, do not try to backfeed power into the stove's circuit through the house wiring; a pellet stove is usually a plug-in appliance, so power it directly, and leave any hardwired or transfer-switch work to an electrician.
Can you run a pellet stove on solar or a battery?
Yes, and a pellet stove is one of the friendliest heating loads there is for solar and batteries. At about 100 watts continuous it is a small, steady draw, nothing like the heat pump or electric-resistance heat that make solar heating hard. In a grid-tied home the stove's electricity is a trivial slice of your annual usage, and the panels cover it many times over on any sunny day. Size the whole picture with the solar panel calculator and let net metering balance the hours the sun is down.
For outage or off-grid use, a modest battery kept charged by a few panels can keep a pellet stove running, which is realistic precisely because the load is so small. Plan the battery around the overnight hours when the stove burns but the panels do not, use a pure sine wave inverter for the control board, and remember the stove runs hardest in winter when solar output is lowest. Even so, covering ~100 watts plus a short igniter spike is far more achievable than feeding a resistance heater.
So the honest framing is that a pellet stove is a rare win for solar-backed heat: real warmth from burning pellets, with an electrical load small enough that a battery and a few panels can carry it. For a deeper outage plan, pair it with a solar generator and keep a conventional backup in mind, and treat the pellet supply, not the electricity, as the thing to stock up on before a storm.
Frequently asked questions
How much power does a pellet stove use per hour?
About 100 watts, which works out to roughly 0.1 kWh per hour and about 2.4 kWh over a full day of continuous burning. Most stoves fall between 50 and 200 watts while running, depending on size and fan speed, with small units measured as low as 64 to 79 watts and large high-output models reaching 200 to 400 watts. On top of that, the igniter draws 300 to 500 watts for the first few minutes of each start to light the pellets, then shuts off.
Do pellet stoves use a lot of electricity?
No. A pellet stove uses only about 100 watts while running, roughly what a box fan or a couple of light bulbs draws, which comes to about $10 to $25 a month on electricity depending on the stove and how much it runs. The wood pellets supply the heat, so the electricity just runs the auger, blowers, and igniter. That is a fraction of what an electric space heater (1,500 watts) or an electric furnace (10,000 to 20,000 watts) pulls, because in those the electricity is the heat.
Can a pellet stove run on a generator?
Yes, easily, as far as capacity goes: a pellet stove needs only about 100 watts running and a 500 to 800-watt surge at ignition, so even a small 1,000 to 2,000-watt generator is plenty. The important thing is power quality. A pellet stove's control board can be damaged or glitched by the dirty output of a cheap conventional generator, so use an inverter generator, which produces clean power, or add a power conditioner. A 2,000-watt inverter generator runs a pellet stove comfortably.
Does a pellet stove need electricity?
Yes. A pellet stove needs electricity to run the auger that feeds pellets, the blowers that move air and exhaust, and the igniter that lights the fire, so it will not operate in a power outage, and losing power mid-burn can even let smoke back into the room. The good news is the load is tiny, about 100 watts, so it is easy to back up with a battery, a UPS, or a small inverter generator. The only version of a pellet or wood heater that needs no electricity at all is a traditional wood stove.
Which is cheaper to run, a pellet stove or a wood stove?
A wood stove is usually cheaper on fuel, especially if you cut or source your own wood, and it needs zero electricity, so it keeps heating through any outage. A pellet stove costs more because you buy bagged pellets (about 1 to 2 pounds an hour, a 40-pound bag a day) plus a small amount of electricity, roughly $10 to $25 a month. In exchange a pellet stove is more efficient, cleaner burning, thermostatically controlled, and far less work to run. For outage resilience a wood stove wins; for day-to-day convenience a pellet stove wins, as long as you back up its ~100-watt load.