Save Your Energy

It may seem like an impossible dream, but freeing yourself from conventional energy supplies is becoming more practical – if you’re prepared to pay the price. Robin Gauldie looks at the options for living off-grid in France

- Robin Gauldie

In most French villages there are still older folk who can remember when rural homes used paraffin lamps for lighting and were warmed by wood-burning fires and stoves. Today, when most homeowners depend on electricity for heating, lighting, and powering an evergrowing plethora of devices from fridge-freezers to laptops and tablets, breaking free of the contracts that tie us to suppliers may look like an impossible dream.

France is, according to some sources, the fourth biggest domestic electricity consumer in the world, after Canada, the US and Australia. That is largely because state-regulated energy prices are way below the EU average. But a growing number of technological fixes make going off-grid an increasingly plausible option for your home.

OPTIONS AVAILABLE

Solutions range from tried-and-tested solar panels and biomass-burning furnaces to wind and water power and geothermal heat pumps.

“Back in 2004 we found ourselves owners of a beautiful lake and a ruinous cabin,” says Diane Kirkwood, who with husband Bob now runs Covertcabin, a collection of off-grid wooden holiday cottages in Dordogne.

Unable to afford the cost of connecting to a mains electricity supply, the Kirkwoods began researching alternative solutions. Solar panels provide light and enough power to charge mobile devices, woodburners heat water for showers, and the three cabins have composting toilets. There’s bottled gas for cooking and powering a mini-fridge.

Such back-to-nature conditions may be fun for a short stay, but for all but a few diehards the novelty of the simple life would probably wear off after a while. We’re all understandably committed to our 21st-century appliances. But with proper planning, you can have the best of both worlds, powering everything in your home for free.