HOW TO
POWER YOUR HOME
You have three main options. Which you use depends on your environment.
PHOTOGRAPHS^ BY^ RANDYHARRISHOTOVOLTAIC (PV) PANELS are clean, noiseless, durable, long-
lived, and relatively maintenance free. For a rooftop install, west- or
south-facing roofs with a pitch of 30 degrees are optimal. Project
Sunroof uses G oogle Ear th images to determine your roof size and
recommend an installation setup. Don’t live in a hot, sunny place? Not a prob-
lem. PV solar production is actually most efficient in colder temps.
If you’re building a battery-based system, you’ll need an inverter for con-
verting DC (direct current) to AC (alternating current) for use with standard
outlets and appliances. Solar inverters usually incorporate maximum power
point tracking (MPPT), which helps you get the most power possible from
your PV array. You’ll also need a charge controller to optimize battery per-
formance. For arrays 200W and higher, a MPPT controller garners about 15
percent more energy per year than a standard controller. A system monitor
will help ma ximize the reliabilit y and productivit y of your PV set up. Today’s
high-resolution “smart” meters use machine learning to read the electronic
fingerprint of your appliances in real time, so you can monitor performance
and track down inefficiencies.
Solar costs are at their lowest in 30 years. A system between 4kW and 8kW
costs $15,000 to $29,000 on average. Do your homework on incentives and
rebates. The Solar Investment Tax Credit (ITC) offers a 30 percent tax credit
for the cost of residential installations.
To power our small OTG cabin pictured on the previous page, we used an
excellent system from Goal Zero. The centerpiece is the Yeti 3000, a porta-
ble power station that charges quickly from the sun and is equipped with
3000Wh of battery storage, so whatever you’re powering will run for a while.
It has a built-in MPPT, and you can monitor charge and battery use from the
Yeti app, and an inverter. The 3000 also has tons of outputs, including a very
handy 60W USB-C for larger devices. You just need an electrician to install
the Home Integration Kit into a circuit breaker, at which point you’ll be able
to power up to four circuits off the Yeti Energ y Storage ecosystem.
For daily use, all of this works beautifully. Ours is hooked up to two 100W
rooftop Goal Zero solar panels, as well as a 100W briefcase panel out in the yard,
which we move with the sun throughout the day. Recently we went to bed one
night with the battery at 54 percent. One full sunny day and part of a morning
later—without much running off it except for a few
lamps and a phone charger—it was fully charged.
The Yeti (Goal Zero also makes Yeti with other
capacities, from 100 to 1400) is also a kind of por-
table generator. It’s on wheels and has a telescoping
handle so you can move it from cabin to car to home.
We tested it on frozen w inter ground, mud, snow, and
gravel and it traveled easily—useful in a power outage.
The 3000 is ideal for a cabin like this: The place
sees use on the weekends and sporadically during
the week. It’s an artist’s studio but could be a hunting
cabin or a weekend retreat. The Yeti just lives there,
soaking up sun, waiting to charge phones and light
up the four LED bulbs that bring some light to the woods.
G oa l Zero’s rea l achievement is in both power and ease of
use. The rig is expensive, but if they can lower the price and
keep making the power stations increasingly easier to set
up and use, the gap between solar people and people who
think solar isn’t for them will shrink. —Ryan D’Agostino
OR A TYPICAL HOME, you’ll need a mini-
mum average annual wind speed of 9 mph
and a turbine rated for 5 to 15 kilowatts.
How do you find this information? The
Department of Energy publishes Wind Resource Maps
for each state. You could also obtain average wind
speed information from a nearby airport, but keep in
mind that airport anemometers will likely be closer to
the ground than your wind turbine hub. Direct mon-
itoring will always be your best bet, as wind strength
varies significantly depending on local terrain. Wind-
measurement systems start at $600 to $1,200. Or you
can build your own. (See opposite page.)
There are two basic tower types: guyed and free-
standing. Guyed towers are less expensive and easier
to install—approximately $40,000 in equipment, plus
another $20,000 in shipping and installation. (Just
be sure you have enough room. Your site design will
need to account for a guy radius of at least one half the
tower height.) Wind speeds increase with elevation, so
a higher tower means more power. Even just 40 extra
feet could yield 25 percent more power and only add 10
percent to the overall system cost. On average, small
wind systems cost approximately $5,760 per kilo-
watt installed, and you could recoup your investment
through utility savings within 15 to 25 years, depend-
ing on your setup. —J.K.F YOU’RE LUCKY ENOUGH to have running
water on your property, then a micro hydro-
electric generator like the Scott Hydroelectric
turbine is the most efficient and affordable
renewable energy option. Even a small mountain
stream that r uns year-round is sufficient. What’s most
important is the vertical drop, not the volume of water.
The U.S. Geological Survey or the U.S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture will have data on your stream’s
flow. You can also use the “bucket method” by dam-
ming up your stream to diver t its flow into a five-ga llon
bucket. If it fills in one minute, you’ve got a flow of five
gallons per minute.
Most home models will run between $4,000 to
$10,000. You’ll need a properly sized generator, bat-
tery bank, and ample piping to get from intake to
turbine. The motivated DIYer with a penchant for
physics could install a micro hydroelectric system
on their own, but we’d recommend consulting your
county engineer for advice. And be sure to contact your
state energy office to find out how much water you’re
allowed to divert from your channel. —Jill KiedaischSOLAR HYDROPOWER
WIND