Off Grid Living with Free Power is Easier Than You Think - Here’s How

Living Off-Grid can be exciting, especially when the energy is free. Off-Grid is not always an option but a requirement for remote locations like a cabin, hunting lodge, campsite, barn, field station, mobile home sailboat or yacht. You need to be able to make your own electricity. The usual way is to have a gas powered generator that can cost $1,000 - $3,000. Consider that the gas generator power is not free. Fuel alone can cost 10 times what the grid power costs. What if you could make your own power from the sun, wind even a magnet-powered generator?

Living Off-Grid can be a way to save cost but that would require no cost power. Making power with solar panels, wind turbine generators or magnetic powered generators is how you can produce free energy to get Off-Grid. You need to know-how to put these free energy generators collectively for a reliable system. Concern for reliability may still include a gas or diesel generator but need a much less significant size and cost.

Evaluating Your energy Load
Your main electrical loads are appliances, cooking and lighting and in a number of situations hot water heater, heat and air-conditioning. All have a calculation and a duty cycle. For an illustration a refrigerator consumes between 350 ý 550 watts while the compressor is operating. The compressor ýONý ratio to compressor ýOFFý is the duty cycle. In a day the 350 watts multiplied by the duty cycle of say 30% would evaluate to 24 x 350 x 30% = 2520 watts per day or 105 watts per hour average. Your energy source and power storage would need to be great enough for this load. Repeat the calculation for all the loads and you will determine the size of the Off-Grid scheme.

Power Sources
If you enjoy a lot of sun you must consider Solar Panels. These devices can yield 70 ý 175 watts of free energy for every panel for a part of the day. By having several panels, 1,000+ watts of free energy is achievable. Wind turbine generators can create 450 ý 1,000 watts of energy the entire day. How much free energy they manufacture can vary with the wind patterns. Magnetic generators are allot smaller devices in the order of 24 ý 100 watts. Their advantage is making free energy at a regular rate 24 hours a day, each day regardless of the weather. Several magnetic generators should be considered. A normal gas or diesel powered electric generator can produce energy also but not free energy.

Energy Storage
All the above energy sources need to keep their energy supplies to get totally Off-Grid. Power storage is in the form of deep cycle storage batteries. Deep cycle batteries are unlike than your car batteries. Car batteries provide a lot of energy for a few seconds then get re-energized. Car battery's chemistry will be damaged if they get strongly discharged. Deep cycle batteries can supply power for hours by design an are not damage by strong discharges. Deep cycle batteries approximate cost each is: $129 @ 33 Amp Hour to $200 @ 450 Amp Hour. The battery Amp Hour rating should be two times the likely load. The batteries last longer that way. To correctly charge a battery from the above energy sources you need a charge controller (regulator). The controller will take a variety of energy source voltages from 14 volt to 48 volts and regulate it to charge the batteries safely. Over charging protection circuits are included. Charge controllers cost from $24 to $84 for 4 ý 30 Amp models.

Energy Inverters
To use the free power that you have stored you need to take the battery voltage and direct current up to household voltage and alternating current. Household voltage of 110 Vac or 220 Vac are electronically made with a device called an ýPower Inverterý. Inverter power output range is important to consider. This power output needs to exceed your peak power load. Inverter cost range is at $36 @ 400 Watts to $852 @ 2,000 Watts. Having more than one inverter gives you built in backup.

Backup Systems
Backup systems are mandatory for Off-Grid living. By definition you do not have access to the Grid energy. Your stored power is your number one line of backup. That should be designed for a 24-hour load. What do you do after that? If your solar, wind and magnetic power sources no longer work you will need a gas or diesel generator. Because you have power storage, you just need to refresh the batteries and that will take a much less significant generator. A 400-watt gas generator will cost $102 and a 3,750-watt gas generator will cost $500. Donýt forget these generators have a fuel and service cost and donýt provide free power.

Conclusion
Making your own power makes sense for Off-Grid but making your own power device would make even more sense. Homemade power devices are one-third to one-tenth the cost of purchased Solar Panels or Wind Generators. If you decide to live Off-Grid to save money then do-it-yourself maybe what you are looking for. Buy a guide that shows you step-by-step how to make a Solar Panel, Wind Turbine Generator even a Magnetic Powered Generator. The guides are cheap, under $50. They have all the problems figured out and give you the best guarantee for success.