Build an essential-load inventory

Define the service you need

Start with outcomes: keep food cold, maintain communications, provide necessary lighting or run a specific water service. Then identify the actual devices that provide each outcome. This prevents a familiar appliance from automatically receiving the highest priority.

Use three categories: required continuously, needed in a scheduled window and deferrable. Record personal or property requirements explicitly. Equipment supporting a critical health need requires its own dependable power plan; a dashboard estimate is not that plan.

Give power and energy separate columns

EIA’s electricity measurement explanation separates power from energy. Keep watts for operating demand and watt-hours for consumption over time. A cycling appliance needs measured energy over a representative period, not its nameplate rating multiplied by 24 hours.

Record peaks without pretending to measure them

Average energy does not establish whether an inverter can start a motor or support several simultaneous appliances. Put startup requirements in a separate column. Use equipment documentation or an appropriate assessment, and mark unknowns as unknown.

For a pump, record why it runs, its typical duration and which other loads may coincide. Give this information to the installer when discussing system capability. Do not infer safe circuit arrangements or change wiring from a monitoring worksheet.

Make a schedule that someone else can follow

Convert vague priorities into simple operating choices. “Laundry can wait until daylight” is actionable. “Use less power” leaves every decision unresolved. Include the condition that changes the plan, such as a forecast of several poor-generation days or a reserve threshold agreed for the property.

Account for human availability. A task that can only be done in the evening cannot always be shifted to midday. A feasible schedule is more valuable than an idealized one that household members abandon after two days.

Keep evidence and uncertainty beside each entry

• Device and the service it provides.
• Priority and acceptable operating window.
• Measured Wh, observation duration and date.
• Typical running W and separately documented startup needs.
• Seasonal or occupancy changes.
• Unknowns requiring equipment documentation or installer advice.

Review the inventory when you add a freezer, change a pump schedule or host more people. Compare whole-system observations with the listed devices, allowing for loads outside the inventory and measurement boundaries.

Sunstead can help observe supported equipment, but an inverter-level total does not automatically identify every appliance. Keep measured appliance data, estimates and system totals labeled so the inventory remains auditable.