Complete Alternative Energy for a small farm?

Question

I have always been interested in Green energy, especially on a scale for all homes. I am asking if anyone knowns where I could find a lot of info about how to completly run a small farm on green energy. (Wind Turbine, Solar, etc.)?

Answer 1

solar panels

Answer 2

Horses, cow dung and a wood stove.

Answer 3

About your question i think solar is the best idea.

There are some more ideas I have in daily routine life.

http://livegreenideas.blogspot.com/

Answer 4

My husband and I live on a small permaculture farm.  We will be building a straw bale house, completely off grid.

Basically, there is no "one" source.  You need to start collecting books, and researching web sites, and gathering information that fits your farm/location.

By the way, it's quiet difficult to power any home, farm, or business off of just one alternative engery source.  However having a combination works very, very well, since one of them is almost always working.

For the heat in our home we will use a Central Boiler (brand name).  This is a radient heat floor system, and ours will be fueled with wood.  You can also use other things, like propane, coal, corn, wood pallets, ect.  Very versital system.

For our actual power we plan to use mostly wind, some solar, and hydro if we can do so legally.  

My husband is a commercial wind turbine technition, and very mechanically gifted.  It's not easy to do alternative energy if you are not mechanically inclined.

Do you already own the farm?  What is the wind in your area like?  How big is your farm?  Will your neighbors complain about you erecting homeowner wind turbines?

Hit your public library.  Google things like "earthship" homes, and research the ways in which those homes are being powered.

If you are building your home from the ground up, you have the opprotunity to include a lot of green energy at the front end.  It's expensive to install.  However if you plan to live in that home for a very time, it does pay for itself.

We view installing alternative energy as an investment in our retirement.  The cost of power is going to do nothing but go up.  If you don't have a power bill when you retire, that is one less bill to have to worry about.

Go to used bookstores also and look for used books on some of these alternative power ideas.  Some of their information will be out of date.  Frankly some of that does not matter.  If you get a 1970's book on solar, the basic ideas of how to orient your home, and were to set up solar cells is still sound.  It is only the solar cells themselves that have changed.  It will also cover some of the basic principals between grid tied, off grid, passive, and active solar.  Each of those four phrases mean something different.  You might as well learn them from a 1970's book you can get for $2, vs. a brand new book you are spending $35 on.

Know this also, solar panels, and I suspect all the new roof mounted homeowner wind turbines, are notorious for causing roofs to leak.  Mount such things on garages, and barns, or have them mounted so they stand alone.  If you get a leak in your barn roof, YOU can probably patch it and repair it yourself.  Get one in the roof of your house, and it may well require a roofer to be fixed properly, so you don't risk rott, water damage, and toxic black mold in your home.

If you have specific questions, post them, and I'll try to answer them.  For the large body of information though, it's simply going to take your time, and research, of specifics on your location, farm, and weather patterns.  Start Googling, and saving sites to favorites as you come accross good ones.  Learn the "buzz words" to make your searches more effective.

Hit your local library.  Also check out classes at your local colleges.  More and more of them are offering classes you may well be interested in.  

~Garnet

Homesteading/Farming over 20 years