These things simply don't work without power and shutting them down can cause smoke backing up into the house.
However you can run these off a UPS or a battery and inverter for longer outages.
Also the newer units are better at venting on a power outage then the older models.
Most of the newer pellet stoves out there now have a temperature sensor enabling one to hook up a thermostat.
This are just a two wire probe usually with only a 10 foot length, wiring in a heat only thermostat makes or breaks the connection based on the settings.
We picked up a new Harman in the spring ( not the top of the line with Wi-Fi control) figuring I could automate it better then the old unit which was close to the end of its life.
First thing was to wire in a thermostat, there are several web pages that detail this.
After wiring in a old nonprogrammable I found one that was
I then wired in that one but not before playing a bit with X10 and a (UM506) universal module this would also make and break the contact.
Since I have a Weather Station I can monitor indoor temperature as well.
This info is placed on my PC using a USB cable.
I can then send the appropriate signal to the UM506 using X10WeatherWatch (there are other softwares also that will do this)
I soon discovered X10WeatherWatch needed some additional conditions added so I'll need to do some more programing to the code.
However since the UM506 breaking the contact stops the thermostat from working this makes a nice way to restart this if I'm going away for a extended time. I can restart this (provided I used the UM506 before it ran out of fuel) from the cottage when I'm coming home.
the thermostat makes sure it doesn't get too hot.