If I were living in a house instead of an apartment, I'm sure I'd be off-the-grid. Solar panels and wind turbines, with a small backup genset powered preferably by waste cooking oils, would be my choice. And some batteries to reduce the need for the backup genset to kick in...
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Originally Posted by kir_kenix
I've very seriously considered moving my personal residence off of the grid. My meager solar array and small wind turbine would almost cover my day to day electricity and farm needs, but I would have to kick on the generator and set up a cleaner transfer switch to run the lathe, milling machine, or welders. Figure I would spend more in diesel/wear and tear on equipment then I would on the $19.99 "service charge" that gets attached to every bill. This will probably not be true if my electricity bill goes up very much more than it is presently.
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Have you never considered using some waste materials (either wood chips, animal manure, whatever organic material) as a renewable fuel source? Running a genset on some biofuel produced at a nearly-zero cost seems viable.