If the amount of electrical power you need is limited, in most cases it is easy to manage to keep it small, it is often easier to run loads off an inverter that feeds of a motor vehicles electrical system than an actual generator. On remote sites I have often used an inverter running off the battery in the truck, with the engine running if there is any significant load, to run a few lights and a power tool off and on.

The inverter is lighter, smaller, and a lot easier to set up than any generator. It is also pretty much silent.

When the lights went out after a storm a year ago I ran my computer, a small light and a small fan for a few hours on the inverter. Then changing over I ran the refrigerator. The fridge had to be run on its own because starting dropped the voltage quite a bit but I got by running it roughly twenty minutes every hour on average and had no losses as long as I ran it at least once every two hours in round figures.

The inverter I used that time was a small 750 watt unit that produces a stepped sine wave so a fluorescent light I tried didn't like it but the computer, running a fairly sophisticated and over-sized power supply, didn't so much as blink. Then again it isn't the most power hungry computer made.

I have a generator but the inverter was easier and juggling the power wasn't that hard. I have been thinking of setting up a system of the generator, and inverter, and a couple of deep cycle batteries.

Adding an inverter and batteries I should be able to get by with a tiny generator barely capable of handling the biggest loads. Smaller generators use less fuel in standby, about 70% of run time typically, so efficiency should be much greater. During periods of low use, when there is just a tiny light and a radio perhaps, the generator can be recharging the batteries. Once the batteries are topped up the inverter can run on them and the generator can be off.