The First Step Toward Off Grid Living

As energy costs continue to grow more expensive, off grid living becomes appealing to more and more people. It is now entirely possible to disconnect from the power grid and make all of your own energy. If you size the system appropriately, you can use solar panels or wind turbines to produce all of your own power. You can take at least your first step towards off grid living by producing some of your own power.

Let’s start by talking about solar power. Solar panels are a great option for supplying power to many homes and can work in all parts of the world, even in remote areas or places with a harsh environment. Some hardware and plenty of sun are the only requirements. For the do-it-yourselfer, the best guide to building a diy solar panel is GreenDIYEnergy. Solar power systems can be big or small and can even be portable to take in your RV. Solar panels are tough, require very little maintenance and can last up to 20 years if properly cared for.

Some number of solar panels wired together are primary part of any solar power system. Solar panels in the northern hemisphere should be facing directly south for the highest power output. With older solar panels, it was more important that they point directly at the sun and many solar power systems used motors to rotate the panels so they always pointed directly at the sun, however with more modern panels this is less important.With more modern solar panels, it is less important that they point directly at the sun, but older solar power systems often had motors to rotate the panels as the sun moved across the sky. 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 your own Solar Panel.

Direct Current (DC) electricity is produced by solar cells and can be used to charge batteries to power any DC appliance. Electricity can be provided at night or when the sun isn’t shining by charging batteries during the day.

In order to provide power to standard AC appliances, you will need to use 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.

Wind turbines can be mounted on a tower, a pole or sometimes even the roof of your house. They are very efficient and fairly small. 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 a great guide to building your own wind turbine, visit Earth4Energy Review

It is possible to combine both solar panels and a wind generator in one system. This can give the best of both worlds and the same batteries and power inverter can be used with both. If it is overcast and windy the wind turbine can generate power and if is it a sunny, calm day the solar panels will provide power.

For people wanting to live the off grid lifestyle, either of these systems can provide enough power. They will let you take your first step towards completely pulling the plug.

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