All you need to go off-grid

OFG-HowToFreeYourself.svg
Search
Sign in / Sign up

wind power

Off-Grid Ales, coming to a store near you

 

 

Off-Grid Ale’s owners Randy and Denise Rowe have lived in a solar-powered home on Harvey Lake in New Brunswick, Canada for seven years.  Now they’re opening an off-grid brewery on their isolated, idyllic land.

 

Although their home is powered by renewable energy, Randy confessed that the workplace “wasn’t necessarily to be off-grid.” But with the nearest power lines kilometers away and a real pull to the area, it worked out like that. “We didn’t have a grid here, but we really liked the location.”The brewery will depend on solar and wind power to operate.

 

To ensure consistency in their brews, Off-Grid Ales relies on a propane system for heating. “You can’t produce a lot of electricity without spending a lot of money so basically, we have to do everything very energy-efficiently,” said Randy.

 

The couple plans on having four different beers including a red, a double IPA and should be out on store shelves in Canada this fall.

The couple had always dreamed of building a brewery branch on their little slice of heaven; “We love it out here” said Denise Rowe. “It is quiet. It is peaceful. I go for runs on our five-kilometre driveway. “…

Read More »
October 13, 2016 No Comments
Self-Sufficiency

Modern old school wind power

windmill01

 

Wind power, here in the US and other countries, we use wind power on small and large scale, mostly to generate electricity, but the Dutch really harnessed wind power long before the era of electricity. As I watch these two videos, I see an orchestra of gears and cogs playing out a symphony of work in beauty, grace and power.

There is an elegant play of massive wood timbers and steel, pushing, pulling, vibrating, it’s almost a living thing, needing constant tending to tighten and loosen, to bring into and away from the wind. I am fascinated by how this works, and even though I’m a major homebody if I were to travel somewhere, I’d love to see one of these windmills in action.

https://youtu.be/9BjFjKeYKDo

https://youtu.be/Q6FxG3ll-lw

And just for fun, this is about those iconic wooden shoes
https://youtu.be/A_obyjejWBo




web statistics


…

Read More »
May 15, 2016 No Comments
Energy

Utilities enter the Death Spiral

offthegridnews,eric valli, utilitiesElectricity and water rates are set to rise sharply because so many households and business are now generating their own power and managing their own water supply. The Utility company fixed costs are not going to change however many people close their accounts and go it alone. So those costs have to be paid by a shrinking pool of consumers.
Utility executives even have a name for the nightmare scenario which more and more solar panels, or boreholes or wind turbines could create – they call it the “death spiral.”They fear solar’s rapid spread across homes and businesses, combined with the increasing efficiency of modern buildings and appliances, could slowly erode the utilities’ ability to generate profits.…

Read More »
October 27, 2013 No Comments

Off-grid electricity: produce, save and store

Off-grid energy supply is a task that has to be analyzed on three levels:

  • producing the energy from any off-grid source, preferably renewable
  • reducing energy use,
  • storing it for future when supply exceeds demand.

True off-grid life means using only free renewable (sometimes referred to as alternative) energy sources. But solar photovoltaic panels and wind turbines supply you with power only when the solar/wind power is available. There are only two ways to simple deal with this problem. But neither of them is a good one.…

Read More »
May 14, 2010 7 Comments
Energy

Windpower in Antarctica

Harsh weather conditions and inaccessibility for half the year make it impossible to install wires and pipes to deliver energy to Antarctica. In Australia�s Mawson Station, 2.1 megalitres of diesel had to be transported by ship and truck every year to keep the station working. This is costly, dangerous and a huge stress for the pristine and fragile Antarctic environment. The Solution:

Mawson

� Australian Antarctic Division 2002
Kingston Tasmania 7050…

Read More »
August 6, 2004 1 Comment
Energy

Island Switches to Wind and Hydrogen

The inhabitants of Utsira, a small island off the southwest coast of Norway, are so pleased with their new wind and hydrogen power plant that they named one of their roads Hydrogen Road.

Utsira

Wind Turbines on Utsira island…

Read More »
August 5, 2004 No Comments