A community in transition to a low carbon, sustainable, resilient life.

Living off grid

Did anyone see the article in today's Guardian about the couple in the Shetlands who have been developing their house to be powered entirely by the sun and wind? Admittedly they get rather more wind than we do, but it is inspiring to realise that it can be done.

They've had a fair bit of attention, with their site (zerocarbonhouse.com) generating interest from all over the world.

Brad

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Permalink Reply by Mike Grenville on May 20, 2008 at 13:43

Shetland has the strongest and most reliable winds of any inhabited part of the world, closely followed by the Falkland islands so not exactly a model for anywhere! But still an interesting model for the many remote communities.

We need more of these place trying out ideas and showing what can be done. Planning regulations also need to support these experiments more readily.

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Permalink Reply by Rowena on May 21, 2008 at 15:17

whenever I have enquired about wind to anyone who works in the renewables area the response that I have always had is that it is much more cost effective at a community level rather than at an individual householder level. So the small windmill that you can buy from B&Q is really a waste of time and effort and energy, but a clutch of larger ones stuck somewhere that gets good wind makes more sense. I think the balance is in not having so many clutches in beautiful places that everyone is sick of the sight of them, and yet having enough local variation in generation to make small(er) communities more self reliant. How 'big' that community is seems the moot point to make wind power effective.

I would recommend a look at the Triodos Renewables Share offer as another way of boosting alternative power sources in this country (taking it as a large community!)