Sara Peters contributed this post to the blog in the theme of enriching our lives by living more sustainably.
It is November 29 and nine days ago I checked the battery voltage for our mini-grid solar power system and AHHHHH!, it was LOW. After running around to the four other houses that are affected when we shut off our system, I switched the inverter off. The weather forecast promised sun in just two short days. We would be back into a voltage range for limited use of lights and computers in no time! Forecasts are educated guesses and no matter how educated the guess, it can still be wrong.
We had no power the first few days and then turned the inverter on for limited use of computers and internet for two hours a day. Limiting ourselves these ways and a minor input of watts even on gray days helped bring our battery voltage out of the danger zone and keep it out. And on the ninth day the sun is shining!
One might not think folks at an ecovillage would be very computer reliant. Well you haven’t been to Dancing Rabbit in the last few years. I am guessing here, but likely close to half of our group decisions are made via email. If you want to be in the know about what events are happening, checking email daily or even multiple times a day is the thing to do. Like much of the broader society, folks here connect with friends and family and keep up with current events via email, facebook, twitter, online news sources, etc. In fact, regular facebook users in our midst know far more about what others here are up to than a comparative Luddite like myself can discover from just chatting with folk on the path.
So when the available power gets low, what do a bunch of internet addicted ecovillagers do? First, we panic. How will we get our work done? (some of us earn our income via the internet.) Committee work can come to a standstill with no way to send out proposals and no one able to respond to them. And what will some of us do without regular twitter updates on the Occupy Movement?! Then, we light candles, open those books we have been meaning to read, visit with our neighbors, play games and put puzzles together. People host events with acoustic music or gather for low power use events like listening to podcasts and discussion after. We commune with each other.
Living with an off-grid solar power system can mean some inconveniences at times. It can mean examining, somewhat uncomfortably, how we use technology. It helps open our eyes to unhealthy patterns and gives us renewed appreciation for living in community. It shows us how rich and full life can be without twitter (gasp!).
NOTE: Change is in our midst. Better Energy for Dancing Rabbit (BEDR), a grid-inter-tie, alternative power cooperative serving Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, has come online. Several buildings including our common house now have far more regularly reliable power. Many buildings still maintain off-grid systems. As our access to regularly available electricity shifts, so too will our culture and our opportunities to re-learn what it is like to be without. I wonder what that will be like?