When I hear people complaining about how high their electic bill is this month, I kind of chuckle to myself. You see, I have not had to pay a electric bill for six and a half years now. The house I live in, has never had wires hooked up to it and the electrical grid is about half a mile away. This house was built in the 1850s, and has never even had any kind wiring inside of it - not even the telephone.

Most people think, to live “off the grid” you must have a big fancy solar system, that will cost so much money that it won’t pay to unhook from the utility companies. If you wanted to, you could hook up with a small, add as you can afford it system, like I have. When we first moved here, our system consisted of two fork lift truck batteries (deep cell lead acid), one 50 watt solar panel, an automotive inverter, a small charge controller, and a old car we used to charge the system when there was no sun (Hey! I live in New York! You need twice the amount of panels that other places do.).

The batteries store the energy until you need or use it. The inverter converts the 12 volt DC (Direct Current) from the battery into 120 AC so you can plug in your normal household appliances. When the charge level is low, you can use a generator to recharge the batteries. A charge controller is a small unit that receives the power from the solar and controls the amount of power that goes into your batteries. To prevent the batteries from being overcharged, it automatically stops charging once your batteries are full. Meters are necessary to keep you aware of what is going in and going out at all times. Fuses or circuit breakers are a neccessary part of your system in the connections between the batteries and other power components (in my case, solar and the generator).

Setting up your system can take a few hours to a few days. It all depends on how much you know about it and how big of a system you are installing. A small system like this isn’t too hard for someone who knows something about electrical power. You can also hire a certified installer to do it for you.

Now, our system has been enlarged a little since then, and we keep adding to it. We now have have four fork lift truck batteries, a meter, a better charge controller, two more solar panels (bought on ., of course!) and a generator, that is made special for this system, it’s DC only. Soon, we will be adding a wind turbine and more panels, and putting them on our new barn’s roof, to get better sun.

I have learned to use very little power, so in fact, I run my . store, Lupole’s Peaceful Forest using a laptop computer. Of course, you have to watch how much power is coming in or going out. And when you buy electrical appliances, you have to be sure they are not power hogs. Even buying a gas cooking range, I had to order one special, that has absolutely no electrical parts to it at all. If your power goes out and you have a glow bar in your oven, you can’t use it. I do use a gas refrigerator, and I love it, so even if I had enough power for a electrical one, such as a Sun Frost, I do not want one now.

So if you are planning on setting up your own small system, there are many sellers here on ., who have some of the best prices on all the equipment you need. There is a shortage on solar panels though, so you may have to wait on them if you order them from a store that does not have them in stock. I never had to wait for them when I ordered them from . sellers.

One other point that I thought would be worth mentioning, is that many states now have rebates for the people who want to install alternative power systems. In New York state, I know that you have to be connected to the power grid system to get the rebate and you have to use a certified installer. I don’t know about the other states, but it is worth looking into.

You can do all the things most other people do, in fact we watch movies on a home theater system that my husband set up especially for watching western movies. The only thing you do different is to keep an eye on the system and be aware of your power usage. But that’s worth not having to pay that bill every month!