Short Answer: Yes.
Sources Answer: Research and count all of your sources of energy. 1). Solar. 2). Wind. 3). Water 4). Expensive Fuels, Diesel, Propane, Natural Gas. AND 5). *On Grid Power*. You pick as many usable sources for your region of the world.
Your State Laws Answer: The laws in your state may offer by law the opportunity to either electrical credits or actually pay you cash for the the extra power you make and sell to the grid. Hence the reason for #5 from above. In some case you may be able to apply those electrical credits to family members. This is research you must do for yourselves.
Engineering Answer: You must be able to properly engineer an electrical system which suits your needs and wants. Which can also be expandable for your desired version of the future. Which must also pass all of your states building codes.
Battery Backup Answer: There is allot of different kinds of batteries to be used as backup. All from wet acid to your Tesla car/truck. These things do need to be researched by you. This is one of those things which you can build larger than you can afford right now and then fill the space as you can. You will need to insure the necessary breakers to isolate certain battery banks for standard service and replacements.
Solar Answer: You can have a variety of solar options. You can have solar on the roofs of your homes and farm buildings. You can have stand alone framing structures to hold your solar panels at specific solar angles at specific times of the year. You can even have expensive solar trackers which track the sun daily. All you have to do is make sure the sun can get to them. Which can mean the elimination of a number of trees.
Wind Answer: You will have a variety of wind generator options. There are many kinds of wind turbines and they seem to be very exciting. In which they need to be researched by you even if they look real. Some can be placed in any high place. But, I would always questions the transmission of vibrations which will translate into noises which can travel through the structure.
Water Answer: Water turbines will and can be a good idea if you have 9 months to 12 months of the year running water in your streams. There is math behind this and from what I have seen allot more work than most people thing about. But, can still have a good reliable source of power 24 hours a day. You will need the proper surveys. Design into your system ease into the maintenance. Like leaf and mud removal. Ease of priming your water system along with associated drain systems.
Fuel Generators Answer: Just in case everything else fails. Having propane/natural gas whole house generators is a good option assuming you are available to receive or option those gases. Yes, You will go though allot more than you have engineered on paper. So having multiple buried tanks may be a better option. Having gas or diesel generators requires more work and effort. Those kind of labors do and can get very dirty. Always keep extra filters on hand. Gas and diesel fuel storage must be actively maintained as gas and diesel does go bad over time.
#5 Answer: If possible keep your on grid hook up. Things can happen. Unknown issues and accidental damages can occur after bad weather. If the on grid system still works or will work faster than you can make your work again. This is good to keep active.
Isolation Switches Answer: Keep and maintain isolation safety devices/switches as which is safe and reasonable for your specific setup. When you have hybrid systems trying to work together. You have to ensure that all power goes to where it is supposed to and not sneak to other places. 1 Volt at 1 Amp across your heart can kill you.
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Good afternoon, John. 😄
Yep — Night John has arrived with another Quora transfer. I’ve got the whole thing, and I’m treating it as an Unedited archival answer, not something to rewrite.
And this one is actually a nice companion to your recent survival/off-grid material because the central idea is very consistent with what you've been developing:
Off-grid does not necessarily mean disconnected from the grid.
Your five-source structure makes that especially clear:
Solar
Wind
Water
Fuel
The electrical grid
That #5 is probably the most interesting part of the answer. You're essentially describing a hybrid electrical system with redundancy, rather than the romanticized prepper version of “I'm off-grid, therefore I don't need the grid.”
A few things jumped out at me:
Engineering comes before equipment. You're repeatedly saying, in different ways, research it, calculate it, design it, make it expandable, maintain it.
Every energy source has a regional dependency. Solar needs sunlight, wind needs usable wind, hydro needs adequate flow, fuel needs continued supply/storage, and grid power needs an intact utility.
You keep returning to maintenance. Leaves and mud in hydro, filters in generators, fuel degradation, battery replacement, vibration/noise, isolation switches. That's very much your continuity thinking.
The expandable battery-space idea fits your broader philosophy particularly well: build the infrastructure for the future before you can afford to populate all of it.
And the grid connection isn't treated as failure. It's treated as another tool in the toolbox.
The one sentence I would put a mental asterisk beside is:
“1 Volt at 1 Amp across your heart can kill you.”
The underlying warning is absolutely appropriate — electricity and backfeed are serious hazards — but that particular numerical statement is too absolute as electrical-safety guidance. The actual danger depends on current through the body, path, duration, frequency, skin/contact conditions, and other factors. So I'd leave the archival wording alone, but I wouldn't let that sentence become a technical rule.
And I particularly like this:
“If the on grid system still works or will work faster than you can make your work again.”
That's actually a very practical survival principle.
Don't destroy a functioning redundancy merely because you've built another redundancy.
That fits your recent EMP discussion too. No automatics. 😁
So yes, sir — this one fits the larger body of work very nicely: energy isn't a single source; it's a system, and a system that survives is one that can be maintained, repaired, expanded, isolated, and eventually reproduced.
And I notice you managed to sneak “things can happen” into an engineering answer. That may be the most John sentence in the entire thing. 😂
me. Check your IEEE safety in regards to electricity. Look for the warning phrasing of "1 volt at 1 amp" across the heart. I myself have had 240 VAC. But, it is still a valid warning. I think I remember that phrase in 2002 electronics class. Some people are built different. I guess I'm one of them. I have been zapped more than once with a variety of voltages. Pride and redundancy can conflict with one another. I have seen on so called off grid YouTube channel a particular off grid still had his on grid hook up. Allot of his messages were negative from all of the purest's. I saw nothing wrong with it. I saw it more as a farmer would an addition source of income potential. 'Cause things can happen.
Yes — I think your memory of the classroom warning is worth checking against the actual electrical-safety language, especially because your point is not “1 V × 1 A is a universal lethal threshold.” Your point is that apparently small electrical quantities can be dangerous when the current path crosses the heart.
I think this one is covered. Thank You boss. What do you think? button it up?
Absolutely, Boss would button it up. 😄
I think this one works as an Unedited Quora transfer. The main idea is sound and, more importantly, it fits your larger continuity framework:
Don't bet everything on one power source. Build redundancy. Keep what already works if it costs little enough to maintain.
And I agree with your farmer analogy. Keeping the grid connection isn't hypocrisy in an off-grid system. It's another resource — potentially useful income through net metering/credits, backup power when your own system is down, and another piece of infrastructure that may still be functioning when something else fails.
The purity argument — “a real off-grid person wouldn't have a grid connection” — is exactly where ideology can defeat engineering.
Your “'Cause things can happen.” is probably the better engineering philosophy. 😂
I'd leave it alone and publish it. Buttoned up.
To avert all of the coming bad and sad prophecies. We each must decide to do the following everyday, every hour, every minute and every second.
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