Offgrid living

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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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[–] mkwt@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

Each Amish community makes its own rules on technology. And there's a process to meet and update the rules every few years. There is no central committee, and specific rules or items of technology are not core religious doctrine.

So there's a wide variety practices out there. And this is why different people have different experiences with the Amish.