Is the only way to fully protect against grid failures to go totally off grid ?
Sure looking like it.
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ArishMell · 70-79, M
It may protect you from cuts in the public supply, but anything can break down, including any generator you install.
Are power-cuts so frequent and long-lasting where you live that they are a serious problem, or could you cope with them simply by a small caravanning type generator sufficient for the refrigerator and one or two important lamps? (And which still needs fuel and servicing.)
There is a sort of romantic fashion in some quarters for so-called "off-grid" life, but whilst it might suit the sort of holiday weekends in rural lodges that the Scandinavians seem to enjoy, it is by no means as advantageous as its proponents claim. Unless you want something of a hair-shirt life, you'd need install a lot of expensive equipment that will not last forever, and is not necessarily more reliable than the public supplies. It may save money on electricity bills over perhaps two decades, but not much else.
Yes, you could have large solar-panels installed on your house roof, perhaps with batteries to cover the night use, and you might be in a "Feed-in Tariff" scheme by which the utility company pays you for "surplus" electricity fed back into the mains when the panels are generating more electricity than you are using. Many householders in the UK have done this, and successfully, too. The installation is not a straightforward DIY effort by any means, if at all, the mains / solar-panel interconnection circuit especially has to be installed professionally to the correct standards (for safety), the life of the panels seems around twenty years and the capital cost is high; so it's not something to embark on lightly.
Are power-cuts so frequent and long-lasting where you live that they are a serious problem, or could you cope with them simply by a small caravanning type generator sufficient for the refrigerator and one or two important lamps? (And which still needs fuel and servicing.)
There is a sort of romantic fashion in some quarters for so-called "off-grid" life, but whilst it might suit the sort of holiday weekends in rural lodges that the Scandinavians seem to enjoy, it is by no means as advantageous as its proponents claim. Unless you want something of a hair-shirt life, you'd need install a lot of expensive equipment that will not last forever, and is not necessarily more reliable than the public supplies. It may save money on electricity bills over perhaps two decades, but not much else.
Yes, you could have large solar-panels installed on your house roof, perhaps with batteries to cover the night use, and you might be in a "Feed-in Tariff" scheme by which the utility company pays you for "surplus" electricity fed back into the mains when the panels are generating more electricity than you are using. Many householders in the UK have done this, and successfully, too. The installation is not a straightforward DIY effort by any means, if at all, the mains / solar-panel interconnection circuit especially has to be installed professionally to the correct standards (for safety), the life of the panels seems around twenty years and the capital cost is high; so it's not something to embark on lightly.