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Increased demand, changing climate and "once in a hundred year" events that seem to happen ever four or five years all seem to be conspiring against us to cause such things.

As far as the power companies are concerned, the simple answer to such problems is to just hike the price, and indeed your power bill has probably been going up by far more than the rate of inflation for quite some time now.

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Most of us realise that this is a crock and that we're being fleeced by these companies because they operate a cartel.

Indeed, one only has to look at the massive profits they continue to earn to realise that we're a captive audience with no option but to pay whatever price is demanded. And, since the government is a major player in this market, they take no steps to reign in the profiteering activities of these institutions.

However, as technology improves, it becomes increasingly practical and economically attractive to disconnect from the grid and become self-sufficient in terms of electricity generation.

Some years ago I did a fair bit of work and came up with a design for a wind-powered generation system suitable for domestic use -- and even back then when power prices were much lower, it was a viable option.

Those with any kind of mechanical and electrical aptitude could likely knock up such a system themselves and kiss the grid goodbye.

In many areas, especially since global warming seems to be greatly increasing the amount of wind we get, a single wind turbine is sufficient to provide a household's entire electrical energy requirements.

Here's how you can go about doing it:

For the DIYers amongst us, it's possible to rewind an old truck alternator to output 400V rather than the more normal 12V or 28V.

Why hike the voltage?

Simple, the higher the voltage, the less power we lose in the wires that connect the generator to the batteries which will act to smooth the flow of power and provide a reserve backup during calm periods.

A kilowatt of power delivered at 12V requires the flow of over 80 amps and that means using very thick wires or losing some of that energy through resistive losses.

Then, instead of using a 24V or 48V battery array to store your power, you need to use a 360V battery.

Well partly because you're generating a high voltage so it's more efficient to store your power at or near that same voltage -- and partly because it means we can dispense with an expensive, costly voltage boosting inverter to run our existing power outlets.

Most wind-power systems use 48V batteries to store power and that low DC voltage is then converted to 230V AC by just such an inverter. The problem with this setup is that manifold.

Firstly, the inverter is a single point of failure. If your inverter fails then you no longer have 230V anywhere in your house and you can't make use of all that power blowing in the wind.

Secondly, inverters can be expensive and they limit the amount of power you can draw from your batteries. Try to use too many appliances at once and pffft! If you're lucky, the inverter shuts down -- if you're not, the magic smoke comes out and you've got a repair bill.

The system I devised reticulates the 400VDC throughout the house and places a very small, very efficient DC to AC converter at each power outlet. Each of these converters can deliver up to 15A of power at 230V (that's well over 2KW)

This means you *can* run the microwave and do the vacuuming or watch TV at the same time.

What's more, there's no single point of failure so if one outlet fails, the others will keep working as normal.

Of course even such a system will have a limited generation and storage capacity so it would be necessary to supplement it with solar/fuel-based water heating and cooking facilities.

Likewise, energy saving fluorescent lighting would be essential and using only the most energy-efficient home appliances would also be important.

But, using a relatively small (ie: suitable for suburban use) wind turbine in conjunction with these somewhat more modern approaches to shifting, storing and delivering that valuable power, make self-sufficiency a far more practical option in the 21st century.

Of course the government and bureaucracy will poke their nose in here and spoil our fun.

Because you're dealing with more than 50V, all wiring will have to be performed by qualified people and/or inspected. Likewise there's a damned good chance that you'll need to apply for (and be denied) resource consent for erecting your wind turbine, unless you live in a rural environment.

Someone will doubtless suggest using solar-cells (PVAs) instead of a turbine - and that would be an option but a damned expensive one. A pole, rewound alternator and set of vanes is a lot cheaper than around thirty 12V PVAs stuck on your roof.

I think we're going to have to bite the bullet pretty soon though. Do we accept a degree of visual and noise pollution or do we spend an increasing amount of our disposable income on buying electricity from a cartel of profiteering sods?

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If you send me your 150x150 banner (no more than 20KB) and a URL to point at, I'll put it in a rotation to appear in the area currently allocated to sponsorship.

Because of my government-imposed state of impoverishment, I won't be charging for this exposure and there's no obligation to anyone -- but neither are their any promises ;-)

Drop me a line if you'd like to take advantage of this.

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