Exploring Off Grid Living

How does off grid living work?

Off grid came upon as an idea when people in remote areas didn’t have access to power plants transmission lines due to high expense. But today many people chose to do it deliberately to not only reduce their carbon footprints but also to save money.

The first step before you install any new technologies will be to get an energy audit of your house.

Once you have this information, you will have access to your total energy usage, making your house energy efficient by taking small steps, and therefore getting an accurate estimate of how much energy you need to generate using renewable energy technologies to meet your needs.

Most people who have managed to do this successfully rely on most common three alternative energy sources. Yes, you guessed it right!!! Solar, wind, and geothermal are the most frequently used renewable energy technologies that contribute to decreasing your dependence on traditional sources of energy

Using solar panel and wind turbines:

Living off grid requires installing an alternative energy source or a combination of various renewable energy technologies. The most common systems are the following:

Solar panels with photovoltaic cells

The new and improved photovoltaic cells (PV cells) technology has come a long way not to generate electricity efficiently but also the cost of solar panels.

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The PV cells combined with a charge controller and an inverter that generates the electricity. Various new solar energy technologies such as solar shingles and thin film solar are also worth exploring. Solar energy in itself can allow you to live off grid or you could combine other alternative energy sources to the mix.

Wind turbines

This renewable energy sources depends on consistent supply of wind. Wind turbines are used to convert wind energy into usable electricity. As you might have seen, most wind turbines are comprised of propeller-like blades that are attached to a rotor. The moving blades spin the rotors, which in turn spins a generator to create electricity. The pole like structure that connects the rotor to the generator is called main shaft. Wind turbines are placed higher on the ground to have access to the wind that might get blocked by the surrounding buildings. In most case, a height of about 100 feet (30 meters) or more above ground is sufficient to take advantage of faster and less turbulent winds.

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Even if wind energy can enables off grid living by meeting your energy needs, you may still want to be connected to the electricity grid. Why is that? This is because if you are creating more electricity that your house needs then you can sell the surplus back to the power company and actually earn some money.

Adding Geothermal Energy to the mix

A lot of people are adding this alternative energy sources to supplement energy for off grid living.

What is geothermal energy? This energy sources allows you to tap the energy absorbed from the ground. Heat pumps are buried in the ground (inside or outside your house) will allow you to extract the heat from the ground.

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Future of off grid living

In the near future, many houses will start to supplement their energy needs with alternative energy technologies. However, the family may also keep the traditional electrical power backup for two reasons; 1) to have a backup system till alternative energy technologies develop to full-scale; 2) to sell surplus electricity back to the power company via a net meter and earn money and make off grid living economically viable.

Go to Alternative Energy Investments from Off Grid Living

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