May 22, 2013

Help may be at hand for off-gridders who want to see an alternative to the power grid. It is provided by Elon Musk, boss of Tesla, who is no fan of off-grid living as far as we are aware, but his needs happen to coincide with those who live outside the power Utility networks.

“Tesla needed to solve the problem of long-distance travel and we can’t wait for others to agree with our strategy,” says Musk. “If we wait for some sort of consensus, it’s going to take too long. We just need to get going and other manufacturers can either copy us or join us.”

Musk, founder of PayPal, and owner of SpaceX, isn’t a guy to wait around and hope technology adapts to his product. No, Musk would rather adapt and invent technology to support his product.

Tosh Szatow has been campaigning for years in Australia to build systems that can scale and make sustainable living possible.

Tosh recently joined the Cape Paterson Eco-village, near Phillip Island in Victoria, attracted by the holistic approach to sustainability adopted by developers Brendan Condon and Mike O’Mullane.

He said the project aimed to find ways to make clean energy more affordable than the alternative and his hope was that it would “catalyse innovation across the property sector.”

Key features will include large scale revegetation of natural habitat, re-establishing wetlands, new walking and cycling tracks, high performance housing, on site power generation, electric vehicles, community gardens and community workspaces. “Somewhere amongst the site will be 220 residential lots.”

Tosh’s recent report by the “Department of Energy Transition, Efficiency and Enoughness” shows a dramatic shift to localised, renewable energy production, made possible by radical improvements in efficiency. One in every three Australian households supplies its own electricity – whether individually, in clusters or small communities.