Articles · Topic
Articles about Off Grid
36 articles across 2 sections
Section
Self-Reliance
Mesh Networking: Build Your Own Communication Network
How to build an off-grid text network with Meshtastic and LoRa radios. No license, no subscription, no cell towers. Hardware from $25, neighborhood range and beyond.
Battery Banks for Off-Grid Solar
How days of autonomy translate into bank capacity, why usable energy sits well below nameplate capacity, and how lithium and lead-acid reach the same usable figure at very different sizes. Includes the cold-weather charging limit that quietly damages lithium banks.
Biogas Digesters
Anaerobic digestion at property scale, and why hydrogen sulfide disables the sense of smell at the concentration where it becomes immediately dangerous. The feedstock threshold, gas conditioning as permanent infrastructure, digestate, and the confined space pattern that kills rescuers.
Biomass, Wood Gas and Heat Conversion
Turning what a property already grows or discards into power and useful heat. Eight guides covering feedstock assessment, thermoelectric modules, Stirling engines, combined heat and power, and the three higher-risk pathways covered under the understand-not-build standard.
Charge Controllers and Inverters for Off-Grid Solar
Where array output becomes usable power. Sizing a controller from array watts and bus voltage, why MPPT recovers energy that PWM discards, the cold-morning voltage that sets a controller's rating, and the surge behaviour that decides whether a well pump starts.
Choosing a Turbine
Head and flow narrow the choice before preference enters into it. Impulse against reaction machines, the application domain chart that sorts Pelton, Turgo, cross-flow and propeller turbines by site, why part-flow performance matters more than peak efficiency, and the case for running a pump backward.
Combined Heat and Power
Accounting for the reject heat that is most of the energy in any biomass generator. Reading the two efficiency figures correctly, sizing to year-round thermal baseload rather than electrical load, the seasonal mismatch, and the water hygiene obligations a preheat tank carries.
Controlling a Hydro System
A hydro turbine cannot be unplugged. Remove the electrical load and it runs away within seconds; close the valve quickly and water hammer can turn 26 psi into 94. How diversion loads resolve both by never interrupting anything, and a precise account of what the electrical code does and does not say about redundant control.
Controlling a Wind System
Why an unloaded rotor runs away rather than coasting to a stop, what a diversion load does, the second independent overspeed protection the electrical code requires, and the three kinds of brake used to stop a machine for service.
Generating Your Own Power
Track 3 of the Energy domain. Continuous power generation at property scale across six areas: solar, micro-hydro, wind, biomass and heat conversion, continuous-duty engines, and site-specific sources. Written for a property that intends to produce its own electricity as normal operation rather than for a household sizing backup.
Ground Mount, Roof Mount and Tracking
Choosing between roof mount, ground mount and tracking for a property array. Tilt and azimuth, the winter bias that favours December over annual yield, snow shedding and airflow, and why adding panels usually beats adding moving parts.
Horizontal-Axis Turbines
The conventional small wind machine explained: lift rather than push, why three blades became standard, tip speed ratio, upwind and downwind rotors, yaw and gyroscopic loading, and the furling and overspeed protection that decides whether a turbine comes through a serious gale intact.
Is Your Biomass Worth It: Measuring What a Property Produces
The three feedstock streams a property can carry, measured separately and converted into kilowatt-hours. Sustainable woodlot yield against the household's own heating claim, the EPA screening threshold that rules manure out for most smallholdings, and the stove hours already being burned.
Is Your Site Worth It: Assessing a Wind Resource
The cube rule, wind shear and hub height, and the four ways to estimate a site's wind resource ranked from worst to best. Includes the Department of Energy screening equation worked end to end on a 12 foot rotor, the 30 foot clearance rule, and why a year of logging at hub height beats every shortcut.
Is Your Water Worth It: Measuring Head and Flow
The two measurements that decide whether a stream is worth developing, taken with a garden hose, a pressure gauge and a tape measure. Head by pressure at 2.31 feet per psi, flow by bucket, float-area or weir, with the surface velocity correction most homeowner guides omit. Worked end to end on one creek.
Micro-Hydro and Water Power
The Hydro track of the property-scale Generation section. Eight guides on generating power from moving water, which unlike solar and wind runs continuously. Measuring head and flow, the three system configurations, turbine selection, civil works, load control, and the water rights and permits that decide whether any of it is lawful.
Run-of-River Micro-Hydro
The standard micro-hydro configuration: divert part of a stream, run it down a pipe to a turbine, return it immediately. The eight-component chain from intake to transmission, why the penstock rather than the turbine is most of the project, what constant output feels like to live with, and the six sites where it is the wrong answer.
Sizing a Solar Array for a Property
Sizing an off-grid array from the ground up: daily watt-hours, the standing draw that inverters and controllers pull around the clock, worst-month peak sun hours rather than an annual average, and stacked system losses. The arithmetic is shown end to end on a single property.
Small-Scale Steam
Biomass-fired steam power and the stored energy that needs no ignition source to release. Low water condition as the dominant failure mode, the ASME and jurisdictional framework that makes a homemade boiler a nonstandard vessel, and the attention the system demands.
Solar at Property Scale
The Solar track of the property-scale Generation section. Seven guides covering what changes when an array has to carry a whole property rather than supplement a house: worst-month sizing, storage measured in days, mounting, code, and winter. One worked example runs through all seven.
Solar Lights for Emergency Preparedness: Lighting That Recharges Itself
Solar-powered lighting for power outages and off-grid use. Path lights brought indoors, portable solar lanterns, and solar shed lights. Zero battery cost, indefinite runtime.
Stirling Engines
External combustion at property scale: the closed cycle and its regenerator, kinematic against free-piston architectures, the heat-to-power ratio that makes these heating appliances rather than generators, and the commercial record behind a thin market.
Thermoelectric Generators
Solid-state conversion of stove heat into direct current. Why a Peltier cooling module degrades from 80 degrees Celsius rather than failing at its solder melting point, why cold-side heat rejection decides output, honest wattage, and the power conditioning a variable source needs.
Towers and Maintenance
The tower decides how much a turbine produces and most of what it costs to keep running. Guyed, self-supporting and tilt-down structures compared, the land each needs, what a foundation actually resists, and the maintenance arithmetic across a twenty year life.
Vertical-Axis Turbines
How Savonius and Darrieus rotors work and the real difference between drag-driven and lift-driven designs. What vertical-axis machines are genuinely good at, the generator at ground level, lower tip speed and noise, and an honest examination of the claim that they suit turbulent low-altitude sites.
When Household Solar Stops Being Enough
How to tell whether a household has genuinely outgrown its solar system, the cheaper corrections worth trying first, and what property-scale generation actually asks in money, space and maintenance. Includes the case for staying where you are.
Why Most Homestead Biomass Disappoints
The four patterns behind abandoned biomass projects: feedstock counted optimistically, labour that recurs daily, reject heat with nowhere to go, and a thinner equipment market than it appears. Set against residential solar costs that fell 65 percent while biomass physics did not move.
Why Most Residential Wind Disappoints
Measured capacity factors against advertised figures, real installed cost per kilowatt, and the four failure patterns behind the gap between what small wind is expected to produce and what it typically does. Closes with the conditions under which it genuinely works.
Wind at Property Scale
The Wind track of the property-scale Generation section. Seven guides on small wind, opening with the honest position that it is the most oversold source on the site. Site assessment, why most installations disappoint, horizontal and vertical axis machines, towers and their maintenance burden, system control and braking, and the zoning that decides most projects before a turbine is ever chosen.
Wood Gasification
What a gasifier does and why the risk is structural: producer gas runs around 170 times the concentration at which carbon monoxide is immediately dangerous, with no odour to warn of a leak. Tar as the dominant failure mode, engine derating, and what qualified execution looks like.
Section
Gear and Buying Guides
Anker SOLIX PS100 100W Review
The Anker SOLIX PS100 is a 100-watt foldable solar panel with a four-position adjustable kickstand and IP67 waterproofing. Here is what it actually produces, where the kickstand matters, and who shoul
Best Solar Emergency Lights for Power Outages (2026)
Three solar emergency lights compared: solar path light packs for free ambient lighting, MPOWERD Luci Outdoor 2.0 portable lantern, and Etetale split-panel shed pendant. The only lighting that never runs out.
BLUETTI PV200 200W Review
The BLUETTI PV200 is a 200-watt foldable solar panel with MC4 connectors that work with nearly any power station. Here is what it actually produces, how its parallel wiring handles shade, and who shou
IBC Tote Water Storage (1,000 Gallons): What to Know Before You Buy (2026)
IBC tote water storage guide for emergency preparedness. Food-grade sourcing, cage inspection, previous-use verification, UV protection, and the four things to check before buying used.
Jackery SolarSaga 100W Review
The Jackery SolarSaga 100W is the best-selling portable solar panel for a reason. Here is what it actually produces in the field, how it fails, and who should buy something else.
Jackery SolarSaga 200W Bifacial Review
The Jackery SolarSaga 200W is a bifacial solar panel with IP68 waterproofing, built-in USB ports, and the best waterproofing in its class. Here is what it actually produces, where it falls short on shade, and who should choose a different panel.