Offgrid living

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Everything off grid; power, water, self-sufficiency; whether you're doing it or aspiring.

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The Amish are said to be good with off-grid systems. Are they ever village-encompassing? (self.offgrid)

submitted 1 year ago by activistPnk to c/offgrid

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The Amish are often thought to object to the use of electricity, but actually they only have a problem with the grid due to being interconnected with the outside world. They use solar, wind, generators (fossil fuel based), and various other clever hacks.

IIUC, there’s a self-reliance value going on. The grid makes it quite unclear who provides the energy from where, and being reliant on unknown entities outside the village is a non-starter for the Amish.

But what about within the village? I get the impression the Amish are quite okay with transactions and interconnectedness within a village. So my question is - do they ever have a village-wide micro grid? Or even shared power between a couple households? Or are each of them always off-grid on a per-household basis?

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[–] schmorpel 4 points 1 year ago

I don't know much about the Amish, but if you look for models of village-scale offgrid systems maybe check out some non-Western countries. I vaguely remember some kid in Africa building some hydro power for his village ... I do know of some Indian ashram cooking for thousands of people with direct thermal solar ... but don't remember names unfortunately.