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  • 1.  Solar Off-Grid Outlook: Demand Rising

    Silver
    Contributor
    Posted 02-28-2025 12:21 PM
    Edited by Timothy Mcbride 02-28-2025 12:23 PM

    The U.S. demand for residential off-grid solar + storage systems is rising faster than on-grid demand, albeit from a far smaller sales base, according to industry players that cater to the niche market. Rapidly rising utility costs are a major economic inspiration for the trend, they say @

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    Timothy Mcbride
    CEOOwner
    Sol-Era R & D
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  • 2.  RE: Solar Off-Grid Outlook: Demand Rising

    Posted 03-03-2025 12:44 PM
    I love the idea of going off grid but I have a few random thoughts.
    I’m not sure how it is in other parts of the United States but last I knew most of the AHJ’s in and around Pennsylvania require you to be connected to the grid in order to get a building permit. They don’t mandate that you use power from the grid but as far as I know they require you to be connected. I have also been told that most insurance companies require residences to be grid connected in order to obtain home owners insurance. Once again they don’t require that you use power from the grid but I have been told you must be connected.
    I have heard of a few states out west that have a special building permit exemption for building off grid without going through the typical inspections etc. however I have also heard that it is extremely difficult to build or sell such a place because most lenders frown on it. Of course if you were doing it without the need for financing no problem. Except I wonder if you’d be able to get home owners insurance?




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  • 3.  RE: Solar Off-Grid Outlook: Demand Rising

    Silver
    Contributor
    Posted 03-03-2025 07:17 PM
    Edited by Timothy Mcbride 03-07-2025 10:13 AM

    When one is pondering such questions as you pose, it is best to take a few steps back and see the BIG PICTURE.  As solar technology evolves towards totality where PV/SOLAR/STORAGE (PSS)  efficiency way out paces load demand within the microcosm of any family human habitat on this planet. No human being will ever have to hook to a grid as we know them today persay forever. Fact is, a lot of these urban areas of the planet will also become off grid along with all the families that live there. In the very near future it will become far cheaper, and efficient to create solar electricity at home than to buy it from some utility that by the very nature of electricity fundamentally cannot compete.  As the whole paradyme shifts so will the permits, rules, insurance, and regulations which all are human induced institutions anyway that can only survive if they change with the times and technology, or these urban areas, and ideas will become abandoned wastelands with maybe a few holdouts clinging to obsolete nitches like a cowboy and his horse in a sea of cars.  A new generation of people will soon desire these self-sufficient solar habitats unanimously and the price will correspond.  The aesthetics along with  new ideas will soon also be created to advance the whole human species towards this new technological relationship between,  Our Sun- Our Planet, and all the human beings living here using solar electricity to power their worlds forever.  It is that simple, only humans can add complexity usually for stasis.  Also furthermore as we have stated before that in the future, " OFF GRID " as it relates to solar will become a misnomer because the people of the future will all be connected if desired, Wifi Omnipresent- As a truly wireless world emerges similar how we are all connected today with smart phones that many people already charge with solar except our very Smart AI Solar Homes/Evs/Eways will cluster energy wirelessly if need be like say if you are on vacation your solar can help power at home neighbors vice versa instead of not being used.

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    Timothy Mcbride
    CEOOwner
    Sol-Era R & D
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    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Solar Off-Grid Outlook: Demand Rising

    Posted 03-10-2025 09:12 AM

    Robert.  As someone who's lived off grid for 25+ years, and built many off grid (and grid connected) PV systems over my career, I would generally NOT recommend most people go off grid.  If you have the grid available, using it as a backup instead of a generator is MUCH cheaper in almost all cases.  The only exceptions would be if the utility charges very high fees just to have a grid connection even without using it (like more than $50/month), or if the capital cost to get the grid connection was very high.  Living off grid requires a different mindset than having the grid to fall back on.  Note that I do not define a system that operates from it's own batteries most of the time, but switches to the grid if the batteries get low to be an off grid system, but rather a form of grid interactive system on the much lower scale of interaction (compared to one where you sell back and may not even have batteries).    I have installed many off grid systems that were fully permitted and inspected, no problem.  But they were in places where the grid was not available -- miles away usually.  I can see it being a problem if the grid is present.   I talk a lot more about his in my book on off grid living that I finally got out after 7 years of working on it :P



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    Zeke Yewdall
    PV Engineer
    Dark Forest Solar
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  • 5.  RE: Solar Off-Grid Outlook: Demand Rising

    Silver
    Contributor
    Posted 03-11-2025 12:45 PM

    Yes, most want grid connectivity because of the stability it creates. If you had only to rely on the "current owner" to make sure power is provided, across the boards it would be a messy landscape. You have the greatest stability when you have grid connectivity and off grid capable. Keeping millions of people powered 24/7 is a huge undertaking really. Wireless is nice for low power applications, but can open up the door for problems that simply don't exist in a wired world. I myself with my systems, NEVER connect my functioning power systems to the I-net. For information about energy being created, but not in anyway that actually can alter the power at any given moment. Makes you too vulnerable, accidentally or on purpose. And considering there is over a million times the microwave energy around us daily than 30 or 40 years ago, a cancer price is being paid for that.



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    william fitch
    Owner
    www.WeAreSolar.com
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  • 6.  RE: Solar Off-Grid Outlook: Demand Rising

    Silver
    Contributor
    Posted 03-13-2025 03:34 PM
    Edited by Timothy Mcbride 03-15-2025 05:27 AM

    Few in the field calculate for the major breakthroughs in the solar technologies with advanced AI over the next few years and the educational renaissance affect as billions of people research, learn, educate, then invest to the full potencial of this technology accomplishing electrical independence locally anywhere on the planet. The shift is already occuring and will happen so fast your head will spin. The solar age is here so get ready for the avalanche of sunshine power everywhere.  


    Expect extreme compact streamlining of all components until most are basically integrated invisible as efficiency goes through the roof, and installation DIY easy at any skill level. 

    And Bill - Wireless Technology doesn't have to be microwaves at all. New developments with wireless with internal self-charging powercells will advance any infused appliance as an energy cosmopolitan anywhere anytime omnipotent.
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    Timothy Mcbride
    CEOOwner
    Sol-Era R & D
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    Original Message