Immodestly, let me suggest our northwest Washington home as a model for energy independence. The building on the left is the shop I built in 2003, with a 9 kilowatt solar array I installed the next year. To the right is our all-electric home constructed by professionals 4 yrs ago — superinsulated, with heating + cooling provided by a ground source heat pump. The more central portion is the main house, furthest to the right is our guesthouse; notice both have dedicated photovoltaic arrays. We share our electricity back + forth with Puget Sound Electric's grid, + have batteries instead of a generator for grid outages. The sharing takes place with inverters for the main + guest house. I drive a BEV or battery electric car, + my wife a PHEV or plug-in hybrid EV, with her first hour of driving purely by battery on almost all days. Our lawn tools are electric, too, including the mower + chain saw, with the exception of the pressure washer. The major caveat is the V-8 panel van which I use about every 5 wks, + put half a tank of gas in maybe 3 times a yr. We generate more electricity than we use on an annualized basis. There is an irreducible $7.49 monthly charge for connection fees with PSE. The upshot? Aside from the truck, I don't use fuel mined from the tar sands of Alberta or pumped from underneath the sands of Saudi Arabia. Everything we do at home + everywhere I drive my car [except charging along the highway outside of state], sets us back $90 a yr. That's right, ninety bucks a year. Our wifi cost more than that every month. #climatechange#electrification #electricvehicles
