Comments on: Really cheap on-grid power, completely diy?

By: Rachel

Rachel — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 09:10:59 +0000

You can go to http://www.instructables.com and find out how to make your own windmills, bike powering your electricity, in a diy self way. they give you the instructions plus a list of the tools you will need in order to make the project. Some projects even tell you how much you will need in order to complete the project, and best of all the website is completely free. Damn, I sound like spam. But it’s not

when yu have some free time , check out the butter pen. Youll be roflmao.
References :

By: Tammy D

Tammy D — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 08:46:59 +0000

Check out "Popular Science" magazine online. In the last year or so they’ve had DIY projects for a Solar Charging Station (for all your portable gadgets- cost around $200) and a roof wind turbine. The solar box is standalone- no hooking it up to the grid, no permits or permission needed from your power company, no inspections- I’d recommend that.

You might also want to buy a Killawatt meter ($60 or so at Amazon)- it’ll let you know which of your appliances are sucking too much power, or sucking power even when they’re off (energy vampires).
References :

By: Dr. C

Dr. C — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 08:01:59 +0000

It’s a nice idea to supplement your power, but connecting your own generation equipment to grid power is anything but DIY.

First, you must get permission from the power company to connect your own equipment to the grid. Before they will grant that permission, they will want to inspect your equipment and validate your installation. They will probably require it to be installed and connected by an electrician who has been licensed in some way to do this specific task. Also, they will probably want to see equipment made by a known and certified manufacturer.

Second, even if you "bypass" the legal requirements, grid power has a regulated voltage, frequency, and phase. Connecting your own equipment will require that you match that voltage, frequency, and phase. Unless you do that, bad things could (and probably would) happen. This is the reason for the first hurdle.

You can buy the power generation equipment to handle this: governors, and phase match devices. If using wind turbines, there are also special variable speed gensets. But this equipment is expensive. You are talking many (maybe tens of) thousands of dollars. A far cry from the few hundred you are looking to spend.

However, if you leave some things disconnected from the grid, then you could use your own genset for those, but you run into reliability issues.
References :

By: djspinrite

djspinrite — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 07:48:59 +0000

There are people out there who don’t get any power from the grid. Most of them make up their own equipment.
References :
http://www.otherpower.com/