this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2023
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Nice. Has anyone successfully moved off grid with these micro domestoc generator type setups? Maybe not a single unit, but a series of water, wind, solar etc...?
If you are already connected to the grid it does not usually make sense to move off grid.
However you can easily have a setup that cover most of you electricity use. You can also install batteries so you are virtually off-grid with the grid just there as a backup for the bad days.
Solar is the main option because it's cheap, very low maintenance and predictable.
Wind and water turbines requires regular maintenance and really depends on your configuration. With solar I can give you an reliable estimate of your annual production and how many time a year you will completely empty your batteries within 5 minutes with only your home address
For wind I need expensive specialized software if you have weathers station close to where you live, if not I need to have sensor on your land to get close to the same result.
In practice for home use you'll never really know in advance how much your wind turbine will produce.
Honestly for 99% of the cases I would recommend solar first before thinking about wind or water turbines.
I can't speak for the one in the video--although that inventor is a Scottish guy who seems to work in impoverished areas in Africa, Panema, Tibet, etc. so I presume his design works as he keeps using it--but Kris Harbour (https://www.youtube.com/@KrisHarbour) is a homesteading guy in the UK who is running his homestead on a combo of solar, water generation, and wind power.
Kris Harbour's latest video is him installing a waterwheel for a client, although he himself uses a little water turbine on his own property. He has videos of both up.
That's the thing. I'm thinking of small omnidirectio al wind turbines, drain flow turbines (like the one in the article) or waterwheels for rivers or drain flow, maybe a small solar installation... would love to give it a shot it if it's viable for a modern suburban household.
Perhaps check out Robert Murray-Smith's YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/@ThinkingandTinkering
I would say of all of that, solar is probably the easiest to do for a suburban household. For hydro you'd need land with access to a stream or something, and for wind you might run into local ordinances about noise or the height of the structure or the like, in a suburban area at least.
Speaking of ordinances, given that solar has taken off so much, depending on where you live I have heard you might have to obey local laws about installation of that too?
I am in NO WAY an expert, but as I understand it (assuming I wasn't misled by my reading), when households are feeding into the electrical grid (instead of just the utility company), an electrical utility worker who is working on something and has turned off power from the power plant coming down their particular line can be surprised/hurt by electricity coming from the residential side of things if it's feeding into the grid and isn't supposed to be.
So that's why areas where solar power on residential homes are regulating solar installs if the electricity from the solar power feeds into the larger grid, so folks working on the lines have a clear idea of what's being fed into them.
MrHydrohead has a series of videos on their multi-year renovation project for their off grid domestic micro hydro power system. While not taking an existing on grid system off grid they renovate their failing off grid hydro system from 1996.
There are 3 short project summary videos the have notes that show which project video covers the topic they are discussing so you can find more information. One Two and Three
I think if they did, I'm not super sure they'd be the type of person posting on social media, but 🤷