What is the Possibility of Generating Your Own Electricity?

There's an old adage that says, "You never miss the water 'til the well runs dry." And we never miss electricity until the power fails. It's almost amazing to find that we live our lives plugged into our electric service. When there's no electric service, the lights go out, and all of the dozens of appliances both large and small no longer work for us. The television won't work. The radio (unless we remember to buy new batteries) won't work, either.

For those of us who live in rural areas, no electric service means that we don't have any water, either, because our water is delivered by pumps that need electricity to function.

Nobody likes it when the lights go out, but it does happen; and when it does, all of us appreciate our electric service a little more when the lights come back on.

But what if we didn't have to depend on electric service delivered by the electric utility company? What if we could use the wind that blows freely or the sunlight that's there for all to power our homes? What if we could go "off the grid," as they say? That would be super terrific! Just imagine all the power we need for our homes AND no electric bill. Wow!

The good news is that both of those technologies are available, and they are available in forms that home owners can use themselves. Wind turbines that use wind to generate power and sunlight captured by solar panels are out there now.

Wind turbines can only be used by those who have the space needed (about an acre of land), but solar panels can be installed in any home anywhere. Sometimes people think that they would only have power when the sun shines if they use solar panels, but that's not the case. The power is stored, and power is available day and night.

Wind and sunlight are the way the homes of the future will be powered - all of them, sooner or later.