First, let me say that JEA (Jacksonville Electric Authority) is far and away the worst utility I've ever had the displeasure of being forced to use. It might just be the area I live in, so maybe some of my fellow Jax Buckeyes haven't suffered the same surges, outages, on/off/on/off/on switching that goes on constantly, etc., but it's awful.
A perfect example is when, because they don't bother trimming tree limbs, a sagging branch took out a line, which caused a fire, which took out a substation, which took down the entire city of Jacksonville for about 9 hours. (1) The limb shouldn't have touched the line, (2) even if it had, it shouldn't have caused a fire in their substation, (3) a fire in one substation shouldn't have taken the entire grid down. But I digress, the point is that JEA is, in my opinion, obscenely negligent across the board. As I sit here, my power has 'dipped' 4 times in the last 30 minutes. Enough each time to reset every clock and piece of equipment in the house.
The point of all of this is that I'm fed up, and I want independence from the grid. At least to relegate their energy to my backup.
I've spent the afternoon Googling, and it looks like there was a ton of chatter about a residential fuel cell product from GE called the HomeGen 7000. But everything online about it is from 1999-2002 or so, all talking about it coming out in 2003, but there's nothing recent. All links to it at GE have been scrubbed clean like it never existed.
I'm not stuck on residential fuel cells, although that's the first area I started reading on. I'm in Florida, so I suppose something along the lines of solar wouldn't be a horrible proposition -- I just don't know if that's reliable and constant enough to make my situation better. I also don't know what upkeep of something like that is. Do you have to go up and play it Phish and Greatful Dead records to keep it happy? Does it need a constant supply of hemp products and tie dye? I'm just clueless (and joking).
I could also go in another direction, and buy a residential gas generator. But those only kick in usually after power has gone out, and running an engine in my garage doesn't seem like the best option.
The goal is uninterrupted power, the cleaner the better, the less maintenance the better, the more efficient the better.
Surely someone here has looked into it all before, and can share some insight, perspective, or maybe a couple links.
Or is the dream of NOT being slave to the local power company, their idiocy and incompetance, completely unrealistic?
A perfect example is when, because they don't bother trimming tree limbs, a sagging branch took out a line, which caused a fire, which took out a substation, which took down the entire city of Jacksonville for about 9 hours. (1) The limb shouldn't have touched the line, (2) even if it had, it shouldn't have caused a fire in their substation, (3) a fire in one substation shouldn't have taken the entire grid down. But I digress, the point is that JEA is, in my opinion, obscenely negligent across the board. As I sit here, my power has 'dipped' 4 times in the last 30 minutes. Enough each time to reset every clock and piece of equipment in the house.
The point of all of this is that I'm fed up, and I want independence from the grid. At least to relegate their energy to my backup.
I've spent the afternoon Googling, and it looks like there was a ton of chatter about a residential fuel cell product from GE called the HomeGen 7000. But everything online about it is from 1999-2002 or so, all talking about it coming out in 2003, but there's nothing recent. All links to it at GE have been scrubbed clean like it never existed.
I'm not stuck on residential fuel cells, although that's the first area I started reading on. I'm in Florida, so I suppose something along the lines of solar wouldn't be a horrible proposition -- I just don't know if that's reliable and constant enough to make my situation better. I also don't know what upkeep of something like that is. Do you have to go up and play it Phish and Greatful Dead records to keep it happy? Does it need a constant supply of hemp products and tie dye? I'm just clueless (and joking).
I could also go in another direction, and buy a residential gas generator. But those only kick in usually after power has gone out, and running an engine in my garage doesn't seem like the best option.
The goal is uninterrupted power, the cleaner the better, the less maintenance the better, the more efficient the better.
Surely someone here has looked into it all before, and can share some insight, perspective, or maybe a couple links.
Or is the dream of NOT being slave to the local power company, their idiocy and incompetance, completely unrealistic?
