Facing sky-high connection fees; Ontarians go off the grid

If your contemplating going off-grid, times sure has changed from when I first looked into it the early 90's.

This sounds much more viable with the change in technology since then and lower initial setup costs.

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He was shocked to find out it would cost $80,000.

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.

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Combined, the system produces eight kilowatt hours — 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.

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Powering the transmitters used to cost a small fortune: $6,000 a month, he says.

"Our current rate is about $1,500," he told CBC News.

"With more solar panels that we're installing currently, I hope to bring that bill down closer to zero and we'll basically use Hydro One as a backup. And so what that basically means is savings of $6,000. That's another employee that we're going to hire."

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worth a read...sounds encouraging: https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canad...rid/ar-AAPXH70

My place will be off grid and I'm really looking forward to it.

Will be running nearly 10Kw and we never used that much in the old house so should be good. Will see what next winter brings as it's the highest draw and lowest charge per day.

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Young couple down the road built their new home off grid trying to be real green with a super insulated home, and solar panels. No hydro on that stretch of the road. 7 years later they have a child and his batteries need replacing at around $7K. Finds he's not getting enough power so they are now running hydro from another road at the back of his property where he has 80ft of frontage. Not sure what his cost is but it's a pile of work just getting the power from across the road through trees and maybe 300 yds worth of poles.

Wind and solar power to go "off-grid" as opposed to a diesel generator and wood heat,has anyone ever done a cost comparison? I don't have enough knowledge on the intracacies of "off grid" living except a couple of resorts I've stayed at in northern Ontario that seemed to do very well with the latter.

My sister has an off-grid setup. Solar panels and a backup propane generator. Wood heat.
Seems to work okay. Already paid for itself.

Lots of talk about being off grid and relying on mother nature. I am off grid with everything propane and only a generator for pumping up water and heating it. Its OK in the Spring and Summer but I would not want to do it in the fall and winter. Last week I could hardly get a battery charged the sun was weak and lots of clouds.

Wind power would probably be best in combination with solar, but we would have to get access to good batteries with large storage capacity. Mind you with the $100,000 it would cost to get hydro poles, I could probably get a pretty nice set up.

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Originally Posted by Gilroy

Lots of talk about being off grid and relying on mother nature. I am off grid with everything propane and only a generator for pumping up water and heating it. Its OK in the Spring and Summer but I would not want to do it in the fall and winter. Last week I could hardly get a battery charged the sun was weak and lots of clouds.

Wind power would probably be best in combination with solar, but we would have to get access to good batteries with large storage capacity. Mind you with the $100,000 it would cost to get hydro poles, I could probably get a pretty nice set up.

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Buried cable rather than poles?

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Originally Posted by trimmer21

Buried cable rather than poles?

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Canadian Shield lots of dynamite needed.

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Originally Posted by Gilroy

Canadian Shield lots of dynamite needed.

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Nah! Just lots of 10Mpa concrete!

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Originally Posted by werner.reiche

My sister has an off-grid setup. Solar panels and a backup propane generator. Wood heat.
Seems to work okay. Already paid for itself.

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That’s the setup that I always figured might work

The largest issue is the storage. Batteries are heavy, expensive and do not like extreme cold or heat. Proper ventilation is required when charging and they have a finite life.

The good thing is that because of technological developments they are getting better and cheaper. Also do NOT cheap out on the inverter. The ones you see at Crappy Tire work but not great and not for long

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Originally Posted by werner.reiche

My sister has an off-grid setup. Solar panels and a backup propane generator. Wood heat.
Seems to work okay. Already paid for itself.

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This is what I have at my cottage. I bought it that way, and was skeptical at first, but it works very well. Of course, a cottage is not the same as a full time residence, but with a well designed system, I don't see why solar/propane/wood heating with maybe some wind to supplement wouldn't be viable for full time use. It does feel good not getting an electricity bill every month and not worrying about power outages.

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Originally Posted by rf2

This is what I have at my cottage. I bought it that way, and was skeptical at first, but it works very well. Of course, a cottage is not the same as a full time residence, but with a well designed system, I don't see why solar/propane/wood heating with maybe some wind to supplement wouldn't be viable for full time use. It does feel good not getting an electricity bill every month and not worrying about power outages.

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Generac has a nice back up generator and it can be hooked up to propane or natural gas.

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Originally Posted by 410001661

Generac has a nice back up generator and it can be hooked up to propane or natural gas.

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I'm using a Firman portable generator that I got at Costco which can run on gasoline, LPG or NG at the flip of a switch. It's pretty versatile. I don't know if the Generacs you are talking about are those permanently installed versions, but yes, those are really nice. My inlaws have one (runs on NG) installed at their home and it's all tied in so that it starts automatically when their line power goes out. Very nice system, but more than what I need for cottage life. If I need the generator (so far, only when I want to run big draw tools), I unlock it, connect to the central propane system, start it manually, then plug in the line to the cottage. Takes less than 5 minutes. The battery charge controller automatically charges the batteries, and the rest of the power is available to the cottage.

We have a Generac 22K propane generator that was installed about 1 1/2 years ago. It's only had to be used a few times since but once was for about 3 hours. We have forced air electric heat. If not we could have had a smaller unit. The power isn't off even a minute before the generator starts.
Our sump pump runs a lot so it is peace of mind in the wet seasons. I keep a back up sump pump ready in case of pump failure.

I was looking into that set-up with my buddy for his place..All is great except the price..quoted $14.5K .

I'd do that install with a new home and float the cost into the mortgage, but hard to substantiate otherwise.

My back-up is just a 4500kw that is thru a transfer switch. Provides 30 amp service which covers power for the well , fridge and a few lights. I cost me about $1K all together, for something (knock on wood) I may never use HaHa..

Yes Mike, it's not cheap. I also have a good portable 8000 generator that I used previous to this set up which is ok if we're at home but this comes on when we are away as well. I had quite a time convincing myself to put out the money. I can be pretty cheap. Now that it's there and paid for when it was installed I don't regret it.
I may sell the portable generator.

I have wired up many permanent and portable generators and I always insist on either a generator panel or a small transfer switch (manual or automatic).

In the context of this thread, if I were to build on a rural property I would definitely go the route this guy did. My place is about 1K from the Hydro feed and it takes 8 hydro poles to bring the power up to the house. I can't imagine what that would cost now, but if I could do it up with solar/wind for under $40K, with a backup propane system it would be a no brainer.

I wonder how those guys that lucked into one of those original FIT programs with Hydro have made out. Selling power back to them at $0.85 /kw was a great deal as long as the equipment maintenance didn't eat to much of it up.

Anyone know anyone and how it worked out. ??

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toron...nson-1.6201547

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Originally Posted by MikePal

I wonder how those guys that lucked into one of those original FIT programs with Hydro have made out. Selling power back to them at $0.85 /kw was a great deal as long as the equipment maintenance didn't eat to much of it up.

Anyone know anyone and how it worked out. ??

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One of my buddies got in at the right time with a 10kW solar installation at the start. Took 7 years to pay off the build but now he makes about 10k/year off it until the end of his 20 year contract. So first 7 years everything he made went into paying it off followed by 13 years at +/- 10k per year into his pocket. So far as well he has not had any real expenses related to repair but knock on wood that may change but at this point it has paid for itself and he has been in black for a few years now.

Boy if you own property that isn't near the grid and you were hoping to sell it for a new home build, I think you're property value just plummeted. Wonder why Hydro One decided to change their policy? We were allowed one free pole to get power to our camp. The next pole we paid for and it cost $2200 in 1998.

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Originally Posted by DanO

The next pole we paid for and it cost $2200 in 1998.

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I had a new pole put in about 3 yrs ago..it was $2,500..the transformer was FREE. The total cost to hock up a (buried) line to a service panel was about $8,500.