I've dabbled around with trying to go "off grid" with my house.
I'm not a hippie looking to 'rough it' in a cabin, but I really like the idea of energy independence and want to try to see if it can be done . . . without a lot of compromises. Basically I want to continue to live as I live, but do so without paying the electric bill to a utility company.
What I believe makes sense is a HYBRID energy system. One that uses SOLAR PANELS and a WIND GENERATOR to charge up a large battery bank. Then power the house from the batteries through an inverter. The problem is that during bad weather, no wind, low sunshine its very possible to drain down the batteries too far. That leaves the option of adding more SOLAR panels, using a larger or secondary Wind Generator, or adding some other sort of generator into the mix to top off the batteries.
I like the idea of adding in another type of component and stumbled across these "wood gas" or "producer gas" generators. Anyone know anything about them? Or this technology? Apparently during WWII about a million cars/trucks were running on this gas because of fuel shortages. Seems like old technology that has been forgotten?
Basically its a system where you burn wood or similar items in a chamber, channel the fumes from the burn into a Kubota engine, and use that to power a generator.
LINK to VICTORY gasifier => http://victorygasifier.com/
LINK to GEK gasifier =>http://gekgasifier.com/gasification-store/gasifier-genset-skids/
I'm not a hippie looking to 'rough it' in a cabin, but I really like the idea of energy independence and want to try to see if it can be done . . . without a lot of compromises. Basically I want to continue to live as I live, but do so without paying the electric bill to a utility company.
What I believe makes sense is a HYBRID energy system. One that uses SOLAR PANELS and a WIND GENERATOR to charge up a large battery bank. Then power the house from the batteries through an inverter. The problem is that during bad weather, no wind, low sunshine its very possible to drain down the batteries too far. That leaves the option of adding more SOLAR panels, using a larger or secondary Wind Generator, or adding some other sort of generator into the mix to top off the batteries.
I like the idea of adding in another type of component and stumbled across these "wood gas" or "producer gas" generators. Anyone know anything about them? Or this technology? Apparently during WWII about a million cars/trucks were running on this gas because of fuel shortages. Seems like old technology that has been forgotten?
Basically its a system where you burn wood or similar items in a chamber, channel the fumes from the burn into a Kubota engine, and use that to power a generator.
LINK to VICTORY gasifier => http://victorygasifier.com/
LINK to GEK gasifier =>http://gekgasifier.com/gasification-store/gasifier-genset-skids/