This country has an estimated 220 gigawatts of what you might call amateur power: emergency generators, industrial fuel cells and other user-owned power plants, compared with 1, 000 or so gigawatts of central station capacity.

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The 633-bed hospital experienced a power surge when emergency generators activated following the black-out.

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In Santiago, some hotels were setting up generators to provide emergency power.

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"Provided the emergency generators worked and had enough power, they would have been able to return to port under their own power, but much slower, " said Andrew O.

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In New Jersey, bills also have been introduced to require gas stations to run generators within 24 hours of a widespread power outage during a state of emergency.

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