We're in the process of designing a house in a rural/mountain region and friends and family keep telling us to put in fireplaces/logburners in case the power goes out. But we don't like the idea of all of those particles in the house (plus the external pollution). However we're predicting that we'll have at least one 60kWh+ portable battery parked in the garage, plus solar panels (which aren't great in winter but still help) and possibly a battery like the Powerwall (another 14kWh+). So it feels like the days of worrying about losing electricity are coming to an end.
You can get wood burning stoves that are completely closed as far as the interior of the home goes. All they do is radiate heat where you need it. The hatch where you put in the fuel and the exhaust are all outside (hopefully somewhere accessible if you're in a blizzard :) ).
Daily incident shortwave energy per square meter is significantly lower in the winter (about half of what it is in the summer). You're also not going to get much of a current when the solar panels are buried in snow.
Wood burning stoves are cheap enough and the odds of you losing power to warrant needing one are large enough that it's a safer bet getting one.
You really should follow their advice. Even if you never use it, it'll still help with the resale value of the property. I'd never want to be dependent on the grid that much in the mountains.
