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How UK govt could help off-grid communities

Its time to stop looking at the thousands of people who live in off-grid communities as strange throwbacks. They are the future, not the past.

(If you have come here from the BBC Radio 4 show looking for offgrid.com – you are in the right place, by the way. If you have not you may wish to listen to it at this link)

There are many reasons why people choose to live off-grid – and although it is not for everyone, there are tens of thousands in the UK alone who are desperate to get away from consumerism, traffic, jams, rapacious landlords, and working just to pay the rent.

Then there are people who want to reduce their carbon footprint – the damage they cause every day to the planet. now we are being told we all have to reduce our carbon footprint.

The UK’s former chief science adviser, Prof. Sir Ian Boyd said that technology alone will not allow us to avoid the pain of carbon reduction. The main thing we must do is “reduce demand” for energy, fuel, food, clothing, and everything else. Over the past 6 years since carbon targets were set, said Sir Ian, the government failed to offer incentives to assist the public in making those changes. It can use the tax system do so in the future. Carbon tax is a stick. Successful policy will also need a carrot.

That provides an opening for an environmental policy that offers, at least to some, an immediate change in their daily lives. For all who yearn for a more “natural” way of life.

For about the same price as the Thomas Cook airlift, the UK Govt could immediately enable several dozen experimental off-grid communities – eco-villages of 300 homes, which can grow to be small towns over time. This could satisfy the pent=up demand of hundreds of thousands of voters and simultaneously advance other key policies in the areas of energy, housing, and rural affairs.

At a time when housing in this country is facing multiple crises – of affordability and of supply and, in the case of social housing, of funding and of allocation – we need to be willing to embrace brave and new solutions.  Off-grid settlements – historically a fringe interest in the UK, although they have a long history in other countries, including the US – offer an important new alternative.

They help solve four problems:
 
• Cheap housing – how to enable it
• Energy use – how to reduce it
• Food Security – how to improve it
• Rural Regeneration – how to kickstart it

A policy which offered £50-100 million over 3 years toward launching dozens of these communities would test to destruction the level of genuine demand for such a lifestyle among our army of rebellious eco-warriors, as well as many other groups who for reasons of …

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A Tyalgum resident poses with his electric bike
Community

Australia Decentralises

When folks first hear about Tyalgum, in East Australia they picture Mad Max.

Steampunk locals power this dieselpunk outpost with renewable, ethanol-based Guzzolene. Tyalgum has free Wi-Fi and a day spa.

Tyalgum is also going off the grid.

And for the people in this bohemian town in Australia’s east coast hinterland, the stakes are high.

A tourist may be forgiven for ignoring the harsh realities of climate change in such a picturesque spot, but the locals are serious. They’re concerned about carbon emissions and rising temperatures. They’re sick of relying on coal-fired power stations for their electricity.

They’re not the only ones. As the existential threat of climate change grows, people and communities across the world are growing frustrated with governments dragging their feet on environmental policy and investment in renewable energy.

Australia is deeply dependent on fossil fuels, with around 90 percent of the country’s energy generation coming from oil, coal and gas. Australia’s federal government is unabashedly pro-coal. While other nations turn to renewables, Australia contemplates building a massive coal mine in the northeast of the country. When debates about volatile power prices hit the news, Australian politicians call for the construction of more coal-burning power plants. In 2017, the deputy prime minister at the time said he would support clean energy targets — if they included coal.

But climate change is real, and Eastern Australia is feeling the effects. With unstable energy prices, statewide blackouts and a fierce debate over fossil fuels, more Australians than ever want to take action on electricity.

For the people of Tyalgum, solar is the future.

That’s where the Tyalgum Energy Project comes in. The ambitious project wants to power the entire town with 100 percent renewable energy and, one day, begin selling excess power to the wider local area, turning Tyalgum into a community-owned energy retailer in its own right.

Tyalgum isn’t alone. Far from it. Just down the road, the town of Lismore switched on Australia’s first community-owned solar project back in January. The 99kW solar farm floats on the overflow pond at the town’s sewage treatment plant.

From homeowners installing a few solar panels on the roof to entire community-owned solar projects, Australians are starting to take back their power.

There’s a reason Australia is called the “sunburnt country.” The continent has the highest solar radiation per square meter in the world, according to Geoscience Australia. Despite its sunny disposition, the country is 15th on the World Bank’s ranking for sustainable energy use.

Australian communities and businesses are beginning to switch to renewables, though. Elon Musk’s Tesla, best known for electric cars, just installed the “world’s biggest” lithium-ion battery farm in South Australia. AGL, one of the country’s biggest energy providers, has plans to convert one of its ageing coal-fired power stations into a clean energy hub. And the country’s biggest beer maker, Carlton United Breweries, is moving toward …

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Energy

Love those Tesla-lovers

Jason Hughes is a happy hacker – but not of computers – he is known for leaking Tesla’s plans ahead of the company’s actual announcements, and now he has revealed photos of his own Tesla battery-powered compound in North Carolina. The 4,500 square-foot home has 102 commercial-grade solar panels to capture energy from the sun which then gets stored into a home battery storage unit composed of battery modules ripped from two Tesla Model S 85 kWh packs.

The 44.4 kW home solar system produces enough energy to not only power the entire home and all of its electrical appliances, but also provides enough energy to charge a pair of his and hers Model S each day. The end result is an elaborate home-engineered system that took roughly a year to design and build, and has allowed Hughes and his family to remain 99% self-sufficient for the past two years.

The battery banks used for storing solar energy are derived from*battery packs found from a salvaged Model S. Hughes dismantled the packs to create a stacked array of battery modules. A total of 36 modules are used in the home set up which equates to 2.25x Model S 85 kWh battery packs.

Here’s a video of Hughes performing a teardown of one of the Model S battery packs.

hughes-solar-home-electrical-roomhughes-solar-home-tesla-battery-module-2hughes-solar-home-tesla-battery

COSTS OF SOLAR POWER

Hughes says a large portion of the overall expenditure went to the $40k cost in Tesla batteries. He admits that the project likely doesn’t make sense from a financial perspective, but it’s important to understand that the value of his project goes beyond what a cost benefit analysis may yield.

Beyond being able to show that living solely off of sustainable energy is possible, the main inspiration behind his yearlong project was his father who taught him at a young age of 9 how to build a small off-grid solar system that produced enough energy to power his bedroom light, a small TV and a PC. That became the catalyst to what would become a lifelong dream to design an off-grid system capable of powering an entire house, along with electric vehicles.

HOME SOLAR SYSTEM WITH TESLA BATTERY

36 modules from 2.25x Tesla 85kWh packs
191.25 kWh (DC side)
~4,200 Ah
43.2V nominal @ 3.6V per cell
15,984 cells (!)
Inverters: 8x Outback Radian GS8048A
240VAC @ 60Hz w/neutral
64kW continuous AC output
30 minute surge: 72kW; 5 second surge: 96kW; 100ms surge: 135.76kW
Grid-Battery Charging Capacity: 57kW
Expected AC output from pack after safe SoC window and efficiency considerations: ~160 kWh usable AC power
PV: 102 Sunpower Commercial Panels @ 435W (20% efficiency) for 44,370 Watts DC
Split into 17 sets of 6 panels (3 parallel of 2 in series)
17 individual MPPT charge controllers (Midnite Solar Classic 200)

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Community

Montana retreat near Canadian border

If you want to unplug and enjoy the breathtaking scenery that Montana has to offer, head to The North Fork. Located only a mile from Glacier National Park and three miles from the Canadian border, this small community operates on off-grid generators and solar power, with no cell phone reception for miles.

“That’s exactly why we chose to build here,” said Bill, owner of a three-level log home. What attracted Bill and his wife Luann to the area is also what created a unique challenge for builder Scott Leigh. “To get to the site, we had to drive 60 miles up a gravel road, sometimes in terrible weather, and then have no cell phone reception the entire time we were there,” Scott said. To minimize the difficult commute, he would stay onsite with his workers four days a week and then drive back to his office on Friday and gather more building materials.

The layout and design of the three-bedroom, three-bath log home was a collaborative effort that included Scott, Bill and Luann and designer Eric Bachofner whose company provided the 12-inch Swedish cope, hand-hewn lodgepole pine logs.

Because the site had an unspoiled view of Kintla Peak in Glacier National Park, the scenery was a major influence on the design. “Bill’s big push was centered on how the house was oriented,” said Scott. “He wanted the bay windows to face the mountain range, so we sat out there together with a compass and the floor plans and made it happen.”

The other key essential was a dining bay with 14-foot ceilings that Bill saw on another floor plan and wanted to incorporate into his own log home. The room features large windows with a 270-degree view of the horizon. Western larch logs provide structural support for the roof, but also create a unique “speckled” design leading up to the ceiling.

Not to be outdone by the dining bay, the kitchen boasts amazing views that “look straight out into Lewis and Clark country,” according to Bill, and is decorated to transition seamlessly into the dining and great rooms in the home’s open design.

To complement the logs, Kurt Kress was brought in to create the kitchen’s custom cabinetry from knotty alder. He applied several layers of stain, glaze and lacquer before heavily distressing the doors to give them an antiqued look. He chose a deep brown hue with green undertones that plays off the copper farm sink framed with two handmade newel posts. Seeded-glass panels were inserted into several upper cabinets as accents. Crema Bordeaux granite countertops complete the rich look of the space with copper features that mirror the same accents found throughout the home.

If you want to disconnect from the wired world, Bill and Luann’s home is certainly the place to do it. And you couldn’t ask for a better backdrop than some of the most spectacular …

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