diff --git a/pkgs/applications/misc/nut/default.nix b/pkgs/applications/misc/nut/default.nix
index 5596fc6010ec..9436b14e5138 100644
--- a/pkgs/applications/misc/nut/default.nix
+++ b/pkgs/applications/misc/nut/default.nix
@@ -30,6 +30,13 @@ stdenv.mkDerivation rec {
   };
 
   patches = [
+    # This patch injects a default value for NUT_CONFPATH into the nutshutdown script
+    # since the way we build the package results in the binaries being hardcoded to check
+    # $out/etc/ups.conf instead of /etc/nut/ups.conf (where the module places the file).
+    # We also cannot use `--sysconfdir=/etc/nut` since that results in the install phase
+    # trying to install directly into /etc/nut which predictably fails
+    ./nutshutdown-conf-default.patch
+
     (substituteAll {
       src = ./hardcode-paths.patch;
       avahi = "${avahi}/lib";
diff --git a/pkgs/applications/misc/nut/nutshutdown-conf-default.patch b/pkgs/applications/misc/nut/nutshutdown-conf-default.patch
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..28e5a286126d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/pkgs/applications/misc/nut/nutshutdown-conf-default.patch
@@ -0,0 +1,10 @@
+diff --git a/scripts/systemd/nutshutdown.in b/scripts/systemd/nutshutdown.in
+index ace2485b3..9dee869bb 100755
+--- a/scripts/systemd/nutshutdown.in
++++ b/scripts/systemd/nutshutdown.in
+@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
+ #!/bin/sh
++export NUT_CONFPATH="${NUT_CONFPATH-/etc/nut}"
+ 
+ # This script requires both nut-server (drivers)
+ # and nut-client (upsmon) to be present locally