Get off the grid!

With an energy crisis looming caused by either government incompetence or the fruition of plans by those working towards a world government, opinion depending on your degree of paranoia, one thing is certain: we are going to experience a huge increase in domestic energy prices.

Hence this is as good a time as any to try to become as energy independent as possible, preferably completely disconnected from the gas and electricity grids.

Getting that far, however, is a process which requires very careful, competent and professional planning. These are the main steps:

  1. Carry out a complete energy refurbishment of you house (triple glazing, ventilation system with heat recovery, airtightness and, preferably external, insulation to passivehouse standard). It is important to go all the way to passivehouse standard if possible because this is the point when the building no longer requires a primary heating system.
  2. Install PV and solar collectors on roof and/or south façade to gather as much solar energy for electricity production and heating as possible - these installations need to be dimensioned correctly from local climate data (use the Meteonorm software to interpolate between weather stations).
  3. Gather rainwater to use for washing and flushing - this can be turned into drinking water through filtering and radiation if required.

After these measures it is normally possible to disconnect your property from the gas grid and, depending on how far you go, also from electricity and possibly water. In case you additionally want your property to produce energy for your car you should consider installing a hydrogen-based energy storage system (available turn-key from Japan and Germany but still expensive) - but you can start with batteries.

This is a brief outline for inspiration only. ZCS accepts no liability or responsibility for any consequences resulting from attempting to follow these steps wholly or partly. Planning permission will often be required. Please get in touch if you require professional advice with regard to passivehouse quality domestic energy saving measures. (We do not sell heating or insulation products).