Do you get frustrated with the prices for electricity and gas? It has become extremely hard to keep up with the rising costs of heating and powering your home, right? Plus, let’s not even start with how frustrating the power companies’ customer support is! The good news is that it’s becoming a real estate trend to forego most of this hassle entirely. How? By living off the grid: purchasing and installing solar batteries and solar panels for the home, making your house self-sufficient. Solar Heating and electricity storage may be the next power wave of the future!
Why? Well, off the grid homes can halve or even eliminate your monthly payments to the electric company, saving you tens of thousands of dollars in the long run. Whether you’re looking to distance yourself from the trouble of dealing with corporations or simply trying to get rid of the middleman, a house-sized solar battery can be a good way to become independent.
At about $7,000-$10,000, high-tech batteries can go a long way in powering off grid homes and saving the homeowner money. While off grid homes are a real estate trend that asks for a substantial investment on the homeowner’s part, many people are insisting that these high-tech batteries pay for themselves rather quickly; especially in areas where electricity is an expensive necessity. They are sleek and usually the size of large appliances, and are both controllable and adaptable. Paired with solar panels, these solar batteries have the potential to take you almost entirely off the grid, and increase the value of your home in the process. Even if you don’t decide to install solar panels, the batteries themselves are valuable investments, especially to a homeowner.
Another benefit of living off the grid is the fact that the market for solar batteries is only growing. In the next six years, it’s said that the industry will grow to be worth almost 18 billion dollars, a whopping number to anyone investing in the technology right now. It’s been predicted that we will begin to see massive growth in off grid homes solutions in the future, solar panels and solar batteries included.
It’s also estimated that, for a homeowner to take himself 93% off the grid, would cost anywhere from $37,000-$40,000. However, this is assuming that said homeowner’s property has access to established grids in case of emergency or unavailable renewable power. To go completely off the grid and remain stable, it could cost much more, upwards of $75,000.
While forty thousand dollars may sound like a lot for a homeowner to spend on home improvement, it can go a long way in saving money over time. Even if the homeowner decides to sell the home after installing the new energy sources, the home value will have skyrocketed from this home improvement. So you save money and make money anyway.
Here are the top 5 states with the most houses living off the grid in America:
- California
- North Carolina
- Arizona
- Nevada
- New Jersey
So, if you talk with a real estate agent in California, you’re very likely to hear from him/her that off grid homes listed with renewable energy sources and self-sufficient “green technology” are automatically more appealing than ones without those benefits. He/She might even mention that, in some cases, you will be able to make money off of your excess energy just by producing it yourself. That is because some electricity companies will buy whatever they don’t use from you, and pay for your contribution to their grid. In return, you can pay them in case you ever experience a shortage on your end, and you can avoid going completely off the grid while still reaping the benefits of having an internal source of power. Throw home automation into the mix and the potential of saving money doubles; in the end, the so-called “green technology” is all about smart energy, as it only uses the necessary when necessary. There’s no waste!
With many homeowners becoming frustrated with soaring prices and ridiculous monthly bills, this real estate trend of becoming energy self-sufficient with off grid homes may be the solution needed not only to contribute to a smarter, cleaner energy to the world but also to free themselves from those costly contracts with power companies.
