SOLAR ELECTRIC MODULES convert sunlight directly into electricity with no moving parts, no maintenance, no fuel, and no pollution. This is the most environmentally friendly way to produce power. Solar electric modules last decades, and offer a 20 to 25-year warranty on power. Best of all, you will help show the world a better way.

SMALL HYDRO POWER brings water downhill in a 2" to 4" plastic pipe, to jet through a nozzle and spin an alternator 24 hours a day. You get more power for less cost than from any other source. You need a stream flowing over 10 gallons per minute, and elevation drop of 20 to 100 feet.

WIND POWER can be effective, but only on a site with average wind speed over 10 mph. Wind can work along with solar generation to provide more uniform power input.

ENGINE GENERATOR as backup provides total security for extended bad weather.

    An Independent natural power system typically produces just 10% to 25% of the electricity consumed by a utility powered American home. That is about 1 to 5 or at most 10 kilowatt hours of electricity on a sunny day. 

    Rather than major life-style changes, we learn to consume a small percentage of the power others use. Here is how:

    The amount of power a solar electric system collects depends on the natural energy resources at your location and on how much equipment you install to gather that energy. How much benefit you receive from that energy depends on careful selection of lights and appliances that use about 1/4 as much power, for radical energy efficiency, and on your conservation habits. This means using special lights, refrigerators, and freezers that use about 1/4 as much power as typical models do. It means using natural gas or propane for major heat production in  cooking, water heating, clothes drier, and home heating. (It's best to include passive solar home design and wood heat where possible). 

WHAT YOU CAN DO

    Most household appliances and lights use only a little electricity, easily supplied by the sun, wind and, micro-hydro. Solar electric homes convert most of their power to 120 volt AC to use as needed for household appliances and lights. Most common are lights, water pump, TV-VCR-Satellite, computer, stereo, vacuum cleaner, kitchen appliances sewing machine, power tools and office equipment. Even high wattage appliances like microwave oven, hair drier, toaster and clothes washer consume little power because their actual running time is short. Various water pumps, including deep well pumps up to 1/2 horsepower, are used. Special design electric refrigerators and freezers save energy in a solar home; gas and small DC powered refrigerators are also used.    

    Before we moved, Just five kilowatt hours per day ran  Backwoods Solar business, shop, and home. The business used three or four computers all day, lights for 5 workers, photocopy machine, postage machine, phone, fax, and paging system, business communication radio, electrical workbench, one room evaporative cooler, a small window air conditioner, and central vacuum system. The home included lights, microwave oven, range hood, juicer, refrigerators, freezer, TV, satellite, VCR, 2 stereos, clothes washer, deep well pump, compost toilet fan, vacuum cleaner, fans, electric lawn mower, electric roto-tiller & electric weed eater, plus a mechanical shop building full of power tools.

WHAT YOU CAN NOT DO

    No Major Electric Heat Producing Appliances: Electric heat, electric hot water, electric cook stove, electric heated clothes drier, and air conditioner account for 80 percent of typical monthly electric bills. It is absolutely not practical to operate major heating appliances with electricity. These use from twenty to one hundred times the power your TV uses. Other fuels produce heat at a much lower cost. Use wood  or propane fueled furnaces; propane cook stoves and water heaters; use gas fired clothes dryers (or just a rope in the sun). Building homes with passive solar heat design saves heating fuel for the rest of our life. Read our energy efficient appliance section for more information on ways to use less power.

    Avoid Most Large Refrigerators and Freezers: Standard, non-Energy Star rated refrigerators have poor insulation and run long hours every day. Most still use well over 1.5 kilowatt hours per day, over 450 kilowatt hours per year. Careful shopping can turn up a few models using less power. Special electric refrigerators and freezers designed for solar powered homes use much less power, and are shown in our Refrigeration section. These highly insulated units can save 50% of the energy consumed by most ordinary refrigerators. Your savings in total cost of your power generating equipment are greater than the added cost of efficient appliances. Propane refrigerators are another good option.

    Air Conditioning: is too energy intensive to be practical, other than a window unit in a very large solar power system. Evaporative cooling- swamp coolers work well in non-humid areas.

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HOW TO DESIGN FOR LOW ENERGY NEEDS 

Lights and appliances are carefully selected for lowest power consumption, so you can get the most benefits from the fixed amount of power available. When visiting a well designed solar electric home, you might not even notice the difference until someone tells you.

We install extra wall switches to cut off power from phantom electric loads, that is, things like stereo, TV, garage door openers, and office equipment which consume power full time, even when not used. We specially wire doorbells, wireless phones, and motion sensor lights to low voltage DC electricity from the battery, so they use little or no  power when idling. We use motion sensor and timer switches for outdoor lights. We use heating systems that distribute heat without needing pumps or blowers. Cooling is evaporative instead of air conditioning. And we learn how to operate our homes to get the most benefit from the fewest kilowatt-hours. 

1. Design whole house (water, heat, power) for low energy use. Use propane or other fuels, never electricity, for all major heating appliances. This means furnace and room heaters, kitchen range or stove, water heater, and clothes dryer should use propane, oil, natural gas, wood, thermal solar, whatever; but NOT electricity. Also choose convection furnaces or vented heaters  that require no electricity to operate or distribute their heat. Use evaporative coolers instead of air conditioning.

2. Carefully select very special low energy lights and appliances. Solar electric homes use special electric refrigerators and freezers that do the job using only 1/4 as much power.  (Some use gas refrigerators). Prices are more than conventional appliances, but savings in the cost of the energy system are greater than the appliance cost because fewer solar modules and batteries are required. Our appliance planning page has the details. Many of these special appliances and lights are available from the Backwoods Solar catalog. 

3. Eliminate waste of energy by appliances, and by human carelessness. Use timer switches for outdoor lights and maybe in children's rooms, and shut off lights when they are not directly being used. Learn where your energy is going and see if each load is necessary. For example, even when switched off, some appliances draw power all the time, (Stereo, TV, VCR, some office equipment, garage door openers etc). These particular items, called phantom loads, should be disconnected completely by a wall switch or switched outlet strip, when not in use. Our wiring planning page has more tips on setting up the house to need less energy. 

After meeting those three measures, a practical and affordable solar electric system (or wind, or micro-hydro or a combination) can provide electricity for your home.

HOW IT WORKS

    The short version is that power produced by sunlight, wind, or waterpower is stored in batteries. Though limited in quantity, the power from the batteries is available to be used at any time needed day or night.  Generated as low voltage DC, the power is usually converted to regular 120 volt AC as it is taken out of the batteries, for use in standard household appliances. 

    If you are interested in the details of how the equipment is laid out and exactly what components are used, click on our technical overview page.

WHAT WILL IT COST?

Cost is lowered by using special high efficiency appliances as described above, and by habits of energy conservation. The amount of power you will actually have depends on the natural energy resources at your site, and how much equipment you install to collect the energy.

The total cost of an independent power system can range from about $800 to $31,000, depending on the level of power you desire. The next page helps find your position in that range by offering six examples, ranging from the smallest to the largest, comparing lifestyle, equipment list, and total cost for each. Average cost is about the same as the expense of extending utility lines 1/3 to 2/3 mile. Check into our system sizing examples page for this specific information.

There are some tax credits available as well as state rebates which you can research at Department of Energy (800)363-3732 and  http://www.eren.doe.gov,  which contains references for what is available in your state.

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