Living off the grid in Oregon
An entire town in Oregon lives totally off the electric grid, generating almost all of their electricity through solar photovoltaic panels. They like it:
In the 250-home Oregon community of Three Rivers, everyone gets most of their power from solar panels on their rooftops or on nearby structures positioned to more efficiently capture the sun.
[...]
Residents in upscale, gated, Three Rivers easily could afford the $300,000 the power company said it would cost to extend its lines three miles (4.8 kilometers) or so to their property 10 years ago.
But they have decided to stay off the grid.
"With power lines come streetlights, and there go your stars at night," Sweet said. "And there are no power outages here."
Solar is still very expensive to install, but with no emissions, no fuel costs, and no dependence on polluting hydrocarbons, it's an attractive alternative that is sure to grow in popularity. Not every location in the country would be amenable to the techology, but even overcast areas would certainly benefit. Three Rivers, located in a mostly desert area, has pretty much free and clear sunshine every day:
"We went from Feb. 11 to Sept. 15 (in 2006) and the generator never ran. All solar," Sweet said.
Residents with wells need generators for their pumps, and propane powers high-demand appliances such as stoves.
Beyond that, the sun does the job.
From 80 to 85 percent of off-the-grid homes rely on solar power because it is the most available and reliable in most areas, said resident Richard Perez. And with no moving parts, it is easier to maintain.
The use of photovoltaic is growing beyond residential customers:
The Los Angeles Community College District hopes to start moving its nine campuses, plus two in development, onto solar power beginning next year.
Larry Eisenberg, executive director for facilities planning, said that with credits and other incentives through private contractors, systems will cost between $900,000 (euro665,877) and $1.8 million (euro1.3 million) each and that energy savings should recover capital costs in about two years.
That's a lot faster than the 20+ years it takes most residential installations of PV to recover their costs, but as the manufacturing costs inevitably drop, the payoff time will shrink.
Here in the Tennessee Valley, we're lucky to have relatively cheap electricity. In Knoxville, KUB charges residential customers a little over 7 cents per kilowatt hour; federal regulations require the utility to buy home-generated electricity from PV panels at a rate of 15 cents per kilowatt hour. So, any excess electricity you could generate above and beyond what you consume would be bought by the utility company for a little more than twice what they'd charge you for the same electricity.
Although the up-front cost of PV is still expensive, wouldn't it be nice to get a check from KUB every month instead of paying them?