How to Create Your Own Power

If the thought of living off the grid is one that you truly desire, you're going to need to understand how to produce your own power. If you're not overly into going off the grid, but want to reduce your current electric costs, creating your own power is a great way to do so. Here are the top methods that you can use to create your very own power for your home.

Solar

Solar power is one of the biggest concepts that has hit the market when it comes to power creation. Solar panels that are specifically installed at your home can collect power from the sun's rays. This can allow you to use your very own power and not pay the utility company for electric. In addition, many solar panel systems will allow you to get paid by the power company for each kilowatt of power that you return to the city power grid.

Wind

Wind turbines are something that we've all seen at one point or another. While you don't want to be filling up your backyard space with a ton of big turbines like you'll see in fields, you can definitely use some small scale options to power your everyday needs. The smaller turbines have blades that range from between 5 to 11 feet long. They produce anywhere from 1 to 10 kilowatts of electricity when they're operating at their optimal speed. This is more than enough energy to power your appliances and lights on a daily basis.

Heat Pumps

Another popular method to create power is through ground source heat pumps. These use pipes which are buried under the ground to extract the natural heat of the ground. The heat that is extracted can be used to heat your radiators, heating systems, and hot water. The other type of heat pump is the air source pump. This extracts heat from the outside air. The heat can be used for the same uses as the ground source heat pump.

Hydropower

This type of power creation is going to highly depend on the topography of your home. You'll need to have a home that has a river or stream that passes through it. This type of home hydropower uses the power of gravity to drive a turbine. As the turbine spins, a generator is turned which produces energy. The strength of the water system will highly determine just how much energy can be produced for the system. There are three main types of hydropower systems. These include the run of the river system, storage system, and pumped system.

Biomass

One of the most old fashioned ways to live off of the grid includes using biomass. This is wood in its simplest form. You can use logs, chips, or even wood pellets to burn as heat. This biomass will provide warmth for your home. You can use a single stove to heat a room or to power a central heating system and boiler. It's really up to the size of your home and your heating requirements.

Exercise

What if that time you spent exercising at the gym could be converted into usable fuel for your home? That is totally awesome and completely doable. In fact, some gyms are actually using the energy expended by your body to fuel their own electricity needs. You can use this technology for yourself by hooking up DC generators to common equipment, like a bike. This works to take the energy you make and convert it to AC power where it's stored in a battery or generator for future use.

Producing your own power isn't overly difficult to do. In fact, there are many different ways you can do so. You may find that you may want to combine a few of the methods above together to create endless supplies to meet your power needs.