Living off-grid doesn’t have to mean living without electricity. In fact, it rarely does. The whole concept of “off-grid” living, of course refers to living without being connected to the grid, which refers to the power grid. But even though we don’t want to rely on the government for our power, that doesn’t mean that we don’t want any power at all.

Now, and stick with me here, as we’ll be dealing with electricity here, please note that if you’re not comfortable DIY’ing your power supply, then hire a professional to do so. I’ll be providing links to the three best resources for learning how to build your own off-grid power supply, and I’ve chosen these three based on:

1. How safe they are

2. How easy they are to build

3. How efficient they are

So I’ve taken great care to only select guides which are safe, easy, and efficient. But still, if you have any hesitations, then hire a professional. It’ll be a lot more expensive, but sometimes that’s just the way it is. Ironic, coming from a guy who calls himself The DIY Prepper, I know, but safety will always be the first priority. After all, we’re doing all this prepping in order to stay safe, so getting electrocuted in the process would very much defeat the purpose!

We’ll cover two methods, solar and wind. There are a lot of other options available as well, but none are as easy and sustainable as solar and wind. Depending on where in the world you live, you might be able to only need one of the two, but personally, I both have some solar panels, as well as a little windmill on top of my tiny house. It just makes the most sense for me.

If you live near a steady stream of running water, then I’d consider a small water mill as well, if I were you. If you follow the link down in the “wind” section, that guide actually also teaches you how to build a water mill. I don’t have any experience with building this, though, so I can’t vouch for its efficiency, but in the off-grid community, I know that water power is held in very high regard! Same goes for if you live near the sea, then by all means go for a wave generator, I just won’t be able to recommend anything for you there (yet anyway).

With that out of the way, let’s get to it.

There’s no reason to not utilize the sun, and its immense (and free) power. The sun literally keeps us all alive, so might as well use it to power our laptop as well! Solar power has been steadily increasing in popularity over the past years, as more and more people want to live without relying on fossil fuels. This is great news for all off-grid enthusiasts/preppers-alike, as it means that more and more knowledge is being shared about solar.

Interestingly, solar panels aren’t a new invention; they’ve actually been around since the 50’s, and were initially invented to power space crafts! Nowadays, however, it’s not literal rocket science anymore, and pretty much anyone can actually design and build their own off-grid solar system. You should note however, that a lot of people opt for not going completely off grid, as that means that they’ll have to store power in batteries to have power when the sun is down. I’m completely off-grid, though, so I can’t really comment too much on whether or not you should go semi or full off-grid. Whatever you choose, you’ll at the very least save a lot of money of your power bills.

There are two main ways you can deal with your solar power system; panels on top of an existing structure, or creating a new structure with inbuilt panels.

If you want to learn how to build your own solar panels from scratch, then this here guide is by far your best bet. It details step-by-step how to get DIY solar panels going in no time. When I tried it out, I managed to build a solar panel for the grand total of $111, with all materials included. $111 might sound like a lot, but it literally pays for itself in a very short time!

The guide is detailed, has rich illustrations, and comes bundled with an excellent wind turbine guide as well. I’d say it’s worth getting this guide just for the wind turbine guide alone! The guide is aimed at the absolute beginner, and holds your hand every step of the way. I haven’t seen it on sale yet though, so be sure to check the link and see if you can grab a copy of the guide during a sale!

Your other option is building a freestanding structure to house your panels. Now, even though I’m actually sorted, power-wise, after I stumbled upon this nifty thing with the quite dramatic name of “Backyard Revolution”, I knew I had to build it.

It’s basically a self-contained solar power-generator, and it’s an EXCELLENT alternative to mounting panels unto your roof. To be honest, if this had existed back when I build my tiny home, I think I would have just built this one, and skipped having panels on top of my house.

It’s based on a design invented by MIT scientists, and I can absolutely vouch for the quality of the guide. It’s very easy to follow, and the results are quite amazing. It’s an actual micro self-contained solar array! I actually think it’s my favorite off-grid gizmo, and it just works. The instructions are really easy to follow, and you don’t need any space at all for it.

It looks pretty cool as well, and I sincerely hope that it’ll gain traction, and become a household item all across the world, as its size and simplicity alone could really revolutionize power-distribution globally! Power as in electricity that is, not the abstract kind.

Be sure to grab your copy of the guide here, and get started on the coolest off-grid item you'll build this year!

I would not recommend that you go 100% wind, unless you live somewhere that makes sense. Wind turbines obviously require wind to produce power, and whereas the sun (even on cloudy days) almost always provide some amount of power, there could very well be days where it’s just not windy enough for you to produce power from your wind turbine.

That being said, as mentioned, I have both solar and wind, and I find that they work really well together.

There aren’t quite as many resources about building your own wind turbine as there are about how to build your own solar panels, but the guide I used myself to build the one I have on my house is still available, and can be found here. It’s not just about building a wind turbine though, it actually covers how to build both wind, water, solar (but not to the same detail as the above mentioned), and normal fossil fuel-powered generators.

The guide also covers a lot of other cool DIY prepper projects, such as an underground garden, rainwater collection systems, and even, and I kid you not, a freaking DIY flamethrower. Full disclaimer, I’ve only built the wind turbine from this guide, but I’m planning on doing the flamethrower sometime in the near future, just because who doesn’t want to say that they’ve built their own flamethrower? If any of that sounds cool, or you just want it for the wind turbine, then you can get the full guide here.

When you’re on-grid, and experience a blackout, it’s inconvenient, but not the end of the world. There’s probably someone somewhere that’s frantically working on restoring power to your home. If you’re off-grid and you have a blackout, either you’re using too much power, or you have a problem, as the person frantically working on restoring the power will, in a few moments, be you.

We always have head-lamps handy, and we always have an emergency generator handy, with enough fossil fuel to last us for at least 24 hours. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of panic, when you experience your first blackout in the middle of the night, several hours from the nearest neighbor. This is actually one of the benefits of having built everything ourselves, though, as I know how our entire house is wired, and I know how everything works, as I built it myself, which makes it significantly more easy to troubleshoot.

We haven’t had a lot of issues with our power though, and in the beginning we just experienced running out of power, as we hadn’t really planned well enough for the difference between on-grid and off-grid living. We once had a solar panel break after a storm, where a rock (or some other heavy object, we never found the murder weapon) must’ve landed right on one of the panels, but that was an easy fix afterwards.

On that note, after you’ve gotten your new solar panels, wind turbine, and possibly flamethrower setup, we’ll briefly need to talk about energy conservation. Living off-grid can be a bit of a trade-off. On the one hand, you get physical and financial security and independence. On the other hand, you rarely get to take 30 minutes long showers, or just leave all the lights running 24/7. I don’t necessarily think that this is a bad thing in any way, but it’s worth mentioning. For my wife and I, it actually just came down to minor adjustments to our daily lives, that add up to a lot of power savings.

You’ll need to consider the size and capacity of your batteries as well. After we had our first few blackouts, we upsized a bit, energy-storage wise to make sure that we always have a bit more power stored than what we need.

Anyway, I’ll share the mantras we live by, when it comes to saving power!

The big picture is made out of the small actions

“I can just leave this light burning, it’s no biggie”. I mean, the statement isn’t necessarily wrong. But if that’s the attitude, then it will become a big deal, as all the power usage accumulates. The most efficient way to save power is to simply adjust your daily actions, and realize that all your seemingly minor actions have consequences. And I for one would much rather save my power for when I actually need it, instead of wasting it because of laziness! On that note, getting Phillips Hue (not affiliated) really made it even less of a problem, as we now simply switch off the lights from our phones anyway. I know, I know, we live in a tiny house, it’s not like there’s a long way from the bed to the kitchen, but it’s more the actual getting out of bed in the first place that would leave us leaving the lights on!

No normal light bulbs

Even if having your lights controlled by your phone is a bit on the wild side, then there’s still absolutely no reason to still use normal light bulbs for anything. Use LEDs wherever possible! They last longer, and use much less energy than regular light bulbs. They’re a bit more expensive to buy in the first place, but they’re very much worth it!

Nothing is important enough to be on standby

You probably already know this, but devices on standby mode still draw power. We simply decided that there are no devices that are so important that they need to be always on, so we always turn everything (apart from the lights) off by turning off the power strip it’s connected to! That way we’re sure that we’re not wasting power on literally nothing.

It’s energy efficient or it’s not in the house

We don’t have anything that’s not certified energy efficient. There’s just no need! Sure, they’re more expensive when first buying, but it’s beyond worth it. If you’re in the US, you’re looking for things that have the Energy Star on them.