Apr

Go Green With Off Grid Living – Home Made Energy

By Dave

Are you sick of increasing monthly electricity bills and you want to see them disappear by living off the grid? off grid living becomes appealing to more and more people. You can now very easily unplug from the power grid and produce 100% of your own energy. By utilizing wind turbines or solar panels, many homeowners are generating their own power, assuming their system is sized correctly. This can allow you to take your first step towards a full off grid living livestyle.

First, let’s discuss solar power. For supplying electricity to houses, solar panels are a great option all around the globe and even in remote or harsh areas. The only requirement is lots of sunlight and some hardware. For the do-it-yourselfer, the best guide to building a diy solar panel is Green DIY Energy Review. You can build a solar power system that is as large or small as required and it can even be portable if your living arrangements are mobile. Solar panels can last more than 20 years if properly cared for. They are tough and require very little maintenance.

Any solar power system will include a number of solar panels that are connected together. In order to produce maximum power, solar panels in the northern hemisphere should be pointed due south. Some solar power systems use panels that rotate so they always point directly at the sun, though with more recent solar panels this is less important than it was with older panels. With modern solar panels, as long as they are pointed due south and at the proper vertical angle, stationary panels will work almost as well as ones driven by motors. Another great resource for how to build a solar panel is Build Solar Panel.

Direct Current (DC) electricity is produced by solar cells and can be used to charge batteries to power any DC appliance. Using batteries allows for storing electricity to be used when the sun isn’t shining.

If you want to provide electricity to Alternating Current (AC) appliances like you typically have around your home, you will need a power inverter. A power inverter can be used to do the DC to AC conversion on power coming from either the solar panels or from batteries.

Another way to generate power to enable you to live off grid is with a wind turbine. Modern wind turbines are fairly small and very efficient and can be mounted on a tower, a pole or in some cases even the roof of your house. If you want to generate power at night as well as during the day, wind turbines can do this which is an advantage over solar panels. As long as the wind is blowing, a wind turbine can produce electricity. For information about making a diy wind generator, visit Green DIY Energy

Some people use a wind turbine together with solar panels. Both solar panels and wind turbines generate DC electricity so you can use the same batteries and power inverter with both. At night the wind turbine can produce power as long as there is a breeze and on calm, sunny days the solar panels can take over and generate electricity.

For people wanting to live the off grid lifestyle, either of these systems can provide enough power. They can allow you to take your first step toward complete off grid living.