Reuters have a big report on how US architect Todd Bogatay and his neighbours are using solar and wind micro generation to live “off grid”, and making very little in the way of sacrifices to do it.
“People used to be attracted to living off-grid for largely environmental reasons, although that is now changing as energy prices rise”
Of course it helps to live in Arizona with good wind and plenty of sun but it is an interesting read and the photographs are definitely worth a look.
The report also quotes Nick Rosen author of the book “How to Live Off-Grid.”
“Because of technology advancing … and because of high house and energy prices … there are a lot more people moving off grid.”
Well OK, but in my mind, I don’t see the imperative to move completely off grid, but as Nick says, solar, wind and other technologies are advancing to make home generation a more attractive option, reducing energy costs and potentially feeding back to the grid. All we need now is feed in tariffs in the UK to keep things move forward and bring balance to the grid …… OK so now I sound like Yoda, so I’m going to stop.
Technorati Tags: solar-power, wind-power, micro-generation
Written by ashleys on May 27th, 2008 with no comments.
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There are presently plans to build a large wind farm on the central mainland of Shetland, the legitimacy of which is quite rightly be discussed. Micro generation is one of the potential alternative sources of energy for the islands if the farm where not to go ahead. One group who are against the project is SustainableShetland.org which is helping to grow resistance to the project.
There is an interesting debate going on presently in The Shetland News letters pages where questions have been raised about the reality of Sustainable Shetland’s proposed alternatives. Here is that organisation’s reply. Good stuff!
Micro generation is increasingly seen as a potential contribution to the solution, which can only be a good thing
Technorati Tags: Wind-power, micro generation
Written by ashleys on May 24th, 2008 with no comments.
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Barratt’s latest development of three towers in London’s docklands is called the Elektron, (corny name or what). Each tower has been fitted with a wind turbine and PV solar panel array. The development also has a low carbon emission communal heating system.
Given that the whole housing market appears to be going south rapidly though , I am not sure that Barratts are going to find the apartments in the development easy to shift. It would interesting to see if the environmental features make it them more or less attractive to pontential buyers. What do you think?
Read more here
Technorati Tags: micro-generation
Written by ashleys on May 19th, 2008 with no comments.
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It is beginning to sound like a broken record, does anyone feel like the government is doing the right things to support micro-generation? The British Wind Energy Association has criticized the UK government’s decision to extend the Low Carbon Buildings Program as merely a means to create the illusion that the government is supporting UK micro-generation and local industry.
Written by ashleys on April 8th, 2008 with no comments.
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The search engine giant Google has announced that it is going to look at ways to develop cheap and clean sources of energy, and that it would invest hundreds of millions of dollars to do so. Their focus will initially be on solar thermal, wind and geothermal technologies. Larry page co-founder of google stated;
“We have gained expertise in designing and building large-scale, energy-intensive facilities by building efficient data centres. We want to apply the same creativity and innovation to the challenge of generating renewable electricity at a globally significant scale.”
First seen on Guardian Unlimited
Written by ashleys on December 9th, 2007 with no comments.
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B&Q are now selling turbine blades at their stores. So do we rush out and buy one expecting to save money? Where would we install it? Can we attach it to the chimney stack that has been there for 100 years? Lets imagine that we have bought a nice shinny new wind turbine and manage to get it all in the car or had it delivered because we just got rid of that petrol guzzling people carrier that was so useful for transporting stuff around. So what do we do now?
Good question and it something I have been planning to write about for a while. In the meantime The Guardian has put together a useful piece entitled Blowing in the wind on this subject. The article also provides some useful links.
Written by ashleys on October 30th, 2006 with no comments.
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