Off the Grid: Living Without Electricity

The most common and cost-effective such strategy is pumped hydroelectric storage: using excess power to send water uphill, then letting it flow back down to generate energy during peak demand. However, hydroelectric storage only works in regions with adequate water and space.

Store it in a home battery, and discharge it whenever your solar panel generation tapers off. This is what it means to have true energy security and independence. Home batteries are the only way to go off-grid without making huge sacrifices in your lifestyle.

• Solar power is probably the one that jumps to mind for most of us when it comes to off-grid energy.
• If you get good news after you contact your local weather service to check on the average wind speed in your area, generating electricity from residential-sized wind turbines is another option for off-grid energy.

1. Lights: Kerosene lamps: We buy kerosene in bulk, 5 gallons at a time.
2. Water: Our faithful hand pump has rarely let us down.
3. Cooking: Propane stove: This has been our only concession to modern convenience — the house gets too hot if we use the wood stove in the summer.
4. Heat: We heat exclusively with a woodstove.

There would be no power to use your fridge or freezer, telephone lines would be down and phone signal lost. Your mobile phones will be useless as the battery dwindles, with no back up charging option. Your gas central heating won’t work and your water supply would soon stop pumping clean water.

Since they refuse to buy electricity from the public grid, but still depend on energy for many of their everyday operations, they were forced to developed many workarounds. To power appliances, Amish use batteries, propane gas, compressed air pressure, various generators, hydraulic pumps, and even solar panels.