Comments on: More on Living ‘Off The Grid’

By: p moorey

p moorey — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 10:22:56 +0000

Am trying to go off grid. Built a 1kw wind system, am pricing an inverter (before HST)
can,t find info on tax rebates. Get a runaround

Please email info

By: Chris (Admin)

Chris (Admin) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:09:10 +0000

The ability to get a federal rebate on provincial sales tax is a great program.

I was thinking ‘why not just not charge sales tax’? But I guess that would not be a good incentive for provinces to encourage renewable energy business growth in their region.

I applaud your efforts and are amazed at your ability to stay off the generator since December – in Canada no less!

Thanks for footing the early-adopter bill to inspire the rest of us!

By: M Mather

M Mather — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:54:15 +0000

Hi Chris! As the publisher of “The Renewable Energy Handbook” I’d like to thank you for using our book to research life-off-the-grid.
Living off-the-grid isn’t cheap, especially if you want to maintain your current and sometimes wasteful energy ways.
We live and work in our off-grid home. After adding a new 1 kw windgenerator to our system, a few new solar panels and rewiring the system to 24V last fall, we have seen a huge improvement in our electricity supply and have not had to run our back-up generator since December!
No, we don’t have a dishwasher but we do use two laptop computers, satellite internet, printers/scanners, a TV with satellite dish, stereos, electric fridge, clothes washer, toaster, kettle and even a small convection toaster oven. Our water is usually heated with propane but with our excess electricity we’ve been using an electric hot water heater to pre-heat our water and so the propane tank rarely turns on.

Many of the U.S. states provide generous rebate programs (here in Canada we can apply for a rebate of any provincial sales tax we pay on renewable energy equipment) but more important than the price are the environment benefits. Just think if more individual citizens took the lead and generated their electricity using renewable techniques!