>Hydro One, which distributes electricity for most rural customers in the province, eventually reduced the cost to $25,000. It was still too much, according to Timmermans.
>Combined, the system( wind-and-solar array) produces eight kilowatt hours β more than enough to run his offices, radio studios, the central air conditioning and the servers that keep his internet customers connected year 'round, he says.
> "And then on top of that, to pay, you know, an electric bill, probably at around four to five hundred dollars a month for the rest of my life and only increasing. I thought, well, now's the time to go off-grid."
So whatβs the total cost of ownership for his system? Does it have $400.00/mo of upkeep?
The $23,000 probably have a capital cost of $30 per month or so, and if they're written off to nothing in 20 years (and the acquisition cost isn't lower by then, which it will), that's another $100 per month.
So that leaves $270 per month for maintenance, emergency supply and other upkeep. Seems completely reasonable that the actual costs will be lower.
Indeed, his uptime will be many orders of magnitude better than what the Ontario grid can provide.
It's an apples to oranges comparison specifically because it is the lines (and not the generating capacity) that fails very, very regularly in rural Ontario.
And note that even with a connection fee of zero, his autonomous setup would start to pay for itself after four years, due to no longer having to pay power bill of $400-$500 a month. Thats assuming zero maintenance costs so not quite correct, but it can't be too far off. It really is a no-brainer.
Where I live (rural Ontario), propane costs somewhere around $2500/year for heat. Hydro costs about $4000. The sane people stick to wood, which if you cut and split it yourself will keep to under $1000. We have disconnected all the electric heaters in my house (except for the newly-installed radiant-heat floor in the bathroom, because it's a luxury I'm willing to splurge on) and only fire up the second woodstove for those weeks it drops below -20.
Heat pumps don't work so well without some way to circulate the heat inside the house and are useless without electricity. I have a large acreage but the water table is under 250' of granite, and there are no ducts in my house. I would be very pleasantly surprised indeed if I could harness geothermal without electricity, extreme home renovations, and $100k in well-drilling costs.
They work just fine, you're just going to go a bit deeper then. I put a thermal sensor down an old well head in mid winter, it was -20 Celsius at the surface and a 'balmy' 12 degrees at 10 meters down. That gradient will allow you to do a lot of good stuff if you use a freeze proof working fluid for your heatpump.
Wouldnβt you be able to have a heat floor heated by your wood? If wood is cheap where you live heating water with it is a nice upgrade from a basic wood stove.
Yes, it would be possible to use the heated cistern water from the wood cookstove but that would mean running insulated pipes through the house, using electric pumps to move the water, and additional maintenance of all that especially when it drops below freezing inside the house. Besides, the joy of the electric radiant heating in the bathroom is best experienced briefly first thing in the morning before going to rouse the fires. The older I get the more I'm willing to splurge on a few luxuries like that.
Iβm currently renovating a house and we live with a single wood (pellet) stove for the whole building. Living in a 16C home is surprisingly fine but the worst part is indeed the cold bathroom in the morning.
About the same as electric, but a bit more hassle if it can't be delivered by truck. The most economic option is an outdoor woodstove, about $10K to install a big one and after that you need to keep it fed, a heat pump is another viable alternative. Another option is fuel oil (essentially: diesel), in an oil burning furnace.
The best way to cut your heating bill in Northern Canada is insulation, wooden houses are pretty good at this to begin with, you can get pretty close to neutrality by some solid engineering (South facing windows, take advantage of thermal mass), then you only need to add additional heat besides what you already generate when cooking on long stretches of overcast days, which don't happen all that often there.
Most people in Canada use natural gas (if the network exists near oneβs home) or propane (if not) for heat in the winter. Electric is considered too expensive. I think things like electric heat pumps are more cost effective nowadays to something like -5C, but alas, much of Canada is far colder for many months.
>Combined, the system( wind-and-solar array) produces eight kilowatt hours β more than enough to run his offices, radio studios, the central air conditioning and the servers that keep his internet customers connected year 'round, he says.
>It cost him $23,000.