[jyl]

A Prius makes a good emergency generator for small loads. No kidding. Unlike a standard generator which runs constantly, the Prius gas engine will switch on, charge the battery, and switch off. I've used the car this way when car-camping for 5 days with an electric cooler. The engine would turn on every few hours.

To run just a household refrigerator and a few light bulbs, I think the car would work similarly. The battery on my gen 2, non-plug-in Prius has an effective capacity of 2 AH (actual is 4AH but the car will not allow the battery to be charged or discharged to that extreme). So for a refrigerator pulling 2 amps, the engine might have to switch on every hour.

I think I should add the inverter connection necessary to do this.