How to Live Off Grid

Most homes are connected to the local power utility, which supplies all the power the home requires.

With the ever-increasing cost of energy, many homeowners are looking for ways to reduce their dependence on this expensive power. This has prompted many to take a serious look into how to live off grid.

If you are trying to figure out how to live off grid, there are a number of alternative energy solutions available to you.

Both solar and wind power provide a great way to generate your own electricity from sunlight or a passing breeze. Either of these technologies will enable you to supply your home with all the power it needs for free.

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How to Live Off Grid

Deciding how to live off grid can take a little research for most homeowners. The first step in designing any alternative energy solution is figuring out just how much power your home requires each month. This is an easy number to determine and will help you size your solar or wind system perfectly.

The easiest way to do this is to review your utility bills for the last year and note your monthly power usage. This number is listed in kilowatt-hours (kWh) on your bill and represents how many thousands watts of power you used that particular month.

This number will help you decide how big your system should be to eliminate your need to be connected to the local grid to purchase your power.

Types of Power Systems

Once you have your monthly number you can then decide if you want your system to be entirely a solar power system or if you want to include a small wind turbine for additional power.

The nice thing about these two technologies is that they compliment each other very well. Solar power is a great solution for most homes and can supply quite a lot of power when the sun is shining.

The challenge with and entirely solar solution is that even the most efficient systems can only generate power during daylight which limits its use to less than half of the day. By adding a small wind turbine you can continue to generate power after the sun has set and even on cloudy days when the solar panels will be less efficient.

Power Storage

One other thing to keep in mind when considering how to live off grid is that you need a way to store power for use when your system is dormant. In a grid connected system you would typically generate more power than your home needed during the day and then send this excess power back up the power lines to the local utility where it would generate a credit for you.

That way in the evenings when you needed to buy power back from the utility you could use these credits to pay for the power. If your system was sized correctly, the credit and purchase would cancel each other out.

When considering how to live off grid, you need a way to store the excess power you generate during the day. Most of these off grid systems use a bank of batteries to accomplish this. This way your battery bank can be charged with the excess power you generate during the day with your alternative energy system. In the evenings you can use these fully charged batteries to supply the power your home requires.

When deciding how to live off grid you have quite a few options available to you. Picking the right alternative energy solution is really a matter of your budget and the amount of power you need to generate for your home. Both wind and solar power are great solutions that can help you make this dream come true.

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