Generator for Heat Pump System?

Whats the running load of the heater with the heat strips on?

It depends on the tonnage of the system and what all is already set up. A 22kw generator and all the associated stuff is very expensive. It may well be cheaper. You'll just have to price it out either way.

Alternatively, a diesel heater blowing on the condensing unit outside might be enough to get rhe heat pump working without the heat strips and a smaller gen could run it.

Countless ways to make this work but it all depends on your knowledge of how it works and how much babysitting you want to be doing in a winter power outage. The easiest thing is all gas heat and a gas automatic backup generator.

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Our heat strip (in the plenum) works fine

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Mine does to, but it sends my bill skyrocketing.

These kinds of threads is why I'm glad I have natural gas heat. My fiancée's mother's house has heat pump units for most of the house except for the remaining unit that covers a den and laundry room. Used to be all natural gas but her mother is so convinced that any house with NG in it will explode eventually that she conned my fiancée into shelling out $40k+ to install heat pumps. First bad winter and the 5-ton unit couldn't keep up with a 10kW heat strip so they added a two-zone mini-split system to cover the upstairs section of the house, blocked off the ducts so that the 5-ton conventional heat pump only had to contend with part of the downstairs, and they went up to a 20kW heat strip. The mini-split is rated all the way to single-digit temps so it's fine but the 5-ton still struggles even with the heat strip to the point there are portable heaters still being used in that house. My gas bill is going to be horrendous this month but since my fiancée insisted on keeping the thermostat above 70, she's paying that bill...

As far as what the OP needs, I personally would get rid of the heat pump setup and get a high-efficiency propane furnace. HE condensing units well above 90% AFUE are not that expensive and since they can be exhausted with PCV they can be an easier retrofit depending on where it's going.

I will check into swapping. The next week will be brutal with 8 to 13 inches of snow followed by sub zero temperatures.

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We have a pair of kerosene heaters as emergency back-ups too, 10k btu and a 25k btu. Also have a 60k btu LPG forced air heater if things got really desperate If just a regular power outage I can run the furnaces off my smaller generator, they each require around 400W - 500W running with their single speed blowers.

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Are kerosene heaters save to run indoors? Also where do you buy kerosene?

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Are kerosene heaters save to run indoors? Also where do you buy kerosene?

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Yes, these are plenty safe for indoor use and I get kerosene at a local hardware store in 5 gallon jugs. Can get it at a lot of places and some have bulk pumps you can fill fuel containers from.