Conservation is the key to getting off-the-grid in any system unless you have huge amounts of funds to power up all your appliances and electrical needs at one time. We found we only needed a system two times bigger than the biggest electric user in our system and could time the use of everything else to power up at a particular time with simple timers. This means some planning but with a a little thinking the new system through - it wasn't as complicated as it first sounded.
We first listed the "main units" that life on the farm could not live without - a small refrigerator (even though the large refig/freezer unit uses about the same amount of power), presently we run a well pump and water softener, office equipment because we work from home and media (entertainment) and the one thing that runs all the time - phone communications.
Secondary systems included the dishwasher, wash machine/dryer unit (more on those later) and those kinds of appliance.
Forth on our list were things that we run occationally - in the kitchen, a breadmaker, mixer, coffee machine (which is now switched to cooking fuel), the dairy pasturizer (runs during the milking season) and we have heating blankets that warm the bed prior to bedtime when heat is not going to bedrooms in the middle of winter.
We broke down power use for every building's electrical power use and wrote out a general time we are most likely to use the power there but still need to keep power running to the house.
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>So, in the end, our grand plan use looked like this:
6 a.m.
BARN - for lights on and milking equipment
7 a.m.
HOUSE - well pump runs for 15 minutes (the time it takes to charge pressure up)
7:30 a.m.
HOUSE - first the pasturizer turns on, then the office area is powered till 9:30
10 a.m. - 4 p.m.
OUTBUILDING - power available for tools
. . .and on through the day like that. We run the dishwasher in the middle of the night and later the washer and dryer run so we can only do one load a day - which is plenty for us but some people may want to schedule a morning load and afternoon load for heavier use. The breadmaker turns on if the washer doesn't run and makes fresh bread for the morning.
Because the seasons bring on different power needs - this scheduled power use is updated as needed and since it runs on timers that can be changed by walking around and adjusting the timer - it is pretty simple.
And, because we have so few electric needs by not running everything at once - our plan went from a 10KWH system down to a 5KWH. Doing this keeps appliances from burning out by not having the "starting" power it takes to get them going since the heaviest load of any electric unit is at the start up.
With an ethonal powered generator, we can power all our buildings for about 3 gallons a day (which we are presently estimating to make at $.35 - $.85 a gallon) depending on the feed-stock for fuel and the season we are running it. Winters have intermittent water de-icers running in the barn and winter is biggest power user time.
After the plan is in place, run it under several different situations and test it before you disconnect!
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