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Open Source.com has raised an interesting issue.
With household and municipal scale electricity generation becoming commonplace, it appears that the energy market is about to experience a major technological disruption. Of course, with disruption comes opportunity, and there's already some clear contenders in the field, from Tesla with their cars and batteries, Suntech with their solar panels, to Vestas with their huge turbines.
There's a big caveat with all of this large-scale investment though, and that's contending with the existing centralized power grids and the utilities that manage them. Open source models are a good fit for this new paradigm, with collaboration replacing monopolies and open systems displacing proprietary vendor controls. High quality open source software tools exist already, including the well-supported PowerMatcher suite, but how will this collection of solutions wrest control of the key "last mile" hardware from the hostile and entrenched utilities?
Any suggestions from the SoyLentil team? If we get it right, all of us could become unfeasibly wealthy...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2015, @06:10PM
if you used a heat exchanger it would be possible to be off the grid
What some people fail to note that it is much more efficient to heat yourself than the whole house. Heat pumps are more efficient at heating the whole house if thats what you need. But when you only have to get warm, it is better to wear two sweaters, socks and turn on a 500 watt heater (and/or multiple 200w bulbs) near yourself.
I have this setup and is way more efficient than any other solution. I don't need warm air throughout the house. Just need to keep myself warm. ...but then I'm not married.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday April 30 2015, @07:13PM
We holed up in my office with a 1000 watt electric heater. We only ran the oil furnace to keep the house warm enough that the pipes would not freeze.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]