Utilities have yet to turn their fire on solar feed-in

San Diego-based OneRoof Energy is making a bid for a piece of the booming market for rooftop-solar leases on homes.

Backed by $50 million in recent financing, the solar startup is approaching homeowners as they build or replace a roof, offering thin solar panels that double as roofing tiles — an aesthetic that blends in with non-solar houses.

By forging a partnership with an established roofing company, OneRoof intends to compete for market share with pioneers like SolarCity and SunRun that lease photovoltaic systems back to the customer or sell rooftop-generated power under a purchase agreement.

So-called “third-party” solar companies, which own thousands upon thousands of rooftop arrays, are thriving based on a curious anomaly of government incentives for rooftop solar.

Corporations are much better positioned than most individuals to collect and repackage government incentives, including federal investment tax credits and deductions for accelerated depreciation.  Utilities haven’t yet complained about solar in the way they once did with industrial cogeneration. Yet its still early. In time, third-party leasing and financing could remake the landscape just as off-balance-sheet project financing paved the way for independent power producers. (more…)

So you’ve decided to buy some land and build an off-grid home. Good luck.

If you are in the United States, chances are strong you will succeed. In the UK and Canada you will be beset by beauracracy and even if you triumph over the system, there are plenty other traps for the unwary. Here is a checklist of simple ways to stay on top and out of trouble.

Time is money
Unless you are going for a second home, building your off-grid place is no quick route to home ownership and it takes an average of about two years from finding a plot to moving in, so make sure you factor in the cost of renting or paying the mortgage on your existing home over this period. Half of this time is likely to be spent securing the relevant permissions and finding contractors.

Beware of false economies

Beattie - future homes will be smaller

The home’s energy functions are connected to a central, Internet-capable automation system that allows lights, air conditioning, home entertainment and irrigation systems to be turned on and off remotely.

Cape Town, the home building industry is similarly exploring innovative ways to go greener and smarter.

Architect Matthew Beatty says green building principles are not being driven by environmental concerns alone. Rapidly rising operating and utility costs, electricity and water usage in particular, will force us to turn to energy-efficient buildings.

Gul: Wants to be alone

India is one of the world’s most off-grid countries – mainly because so many of its inhabitants were never on the grid in the first place.  As hundreds of millions struggle to get connected, Bollywood actress Gul Panag will throw open the doors of her weekend home, one of the first in India to be built to eco standards.

Indians say it’s a leg up for the green home movement, and in that upwardly mobile culture, want to move away from just the symbolic rain-water-harvesting-and-solar- panel installation design to an expensively laid out vision, capped by a system of evaluation, rating and certification. (more…)

Art and Nan Kellam bought an uninhabited island off the coast of Maine in 1949 and lived there for more than 35 years, content with little more than each other’s company. They had no electricity or running water, and heated the house they built with firewood from their forest. To fetch supplies, they rowed a dory several miles to the mainland and back.

New Jersey native and avid conservationist Peter Blanchard III tells the unusual love story of Art and Nan Kellam in “We Were an Island,” a book based largely on journals kept by the Kellams. (more…)

Fred: Greens make him see Red

Canadian Country singer  Fred Eaglesmith is our kind of environmentalist.

“I’m not part of the trend. I’m not part of the Green Revolution,” he tells the Globe and Mail. “I don’t like the green revolution. Fashion is always a bad thing. It is very fashionable to be green right now. That means it will go away.”

He’s pushing a new album at the moment – needs to be a bit controversial, but we’re liking it.  Nick Rosen wrote an article a couple of years back – Brown is the new Green, and Eaglesmith is echoing that philosophy when he says ”Corporations love it. Now they are marketing green. It’s just horrible. Green will go the way of the wide-legged pant. (more…)

Government may not heed it – when do they ever listen to the people?  - but big business is getting the message.

Zillow, a division of Forbes, is celebrating the off-grid housing boom in a blogpost titled “Stories of People Who Are Doing it: Living Greener, Off-the-Grid.” Here is an excerpt:

“Off-the-grid” may conjure images of die-hard survivalists, but the term actually has a spectrum of meaning.
“Now more people are starting to understand how quickly we are driving toward the edge of our ecological capacity on the planet,” said Katrina Morgan, principal architect for Fermata Consulting, a green building consulting firm. “They are not just fringe types anymore.”Many of those disconnected from the electrical grid are living in homes powered by renewable resources like wind and solar. Some eschew other public utilities, like municipal water and sewage systems. Others forage for building materials. Many live communally. Here are a few of their stories. (more…)

Off-Grid TV is casting for entertaining communities or families for our planned documentary series.

We are searching throughout North America and Europe for  committed, entertaining,  off-beat, unique, outgoing communities, families or couples living Off the Grid or about to start doing so. (more…)

Living off grid and making very little money, dental and health insurance is pretty much out of the question, so being proactive about my dental health is something that has really become something important to me. I know that many health issues are directly influenced by the state of your dental health, mainly from bacteria and infections that might be simmering just below the surface. (more…)