Jackal,

I used to use candles for emergency power outages but found them very dangerous around children, many a house fires started this way. I have a couple of boys and as you may know they are all fasinated with flame!!!

To dangerous for this household so I rigged up 12 volt downlights and coupled it to a motorcycle battery then positioned the downlights in the kitchen, main living area, hallway and one in the electrical box (where the battery is located), they automatacaly come on when the power goes off which gives me heaps of time to switch on the genset or the backup batteries to run the house on mains, simple to install and very effective all without running around in the dark looking for candles and torches.