Offgrid living

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The Amish are said to be good with off-grid systems. Are they ever village-encompassing? (slrpnk.net)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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The Amish are often thought to object to the use of electricity, but actually they only have a problem with the grid due to being interconnected with the outside world. They use solar, wind, generators (fossil fuel based), and various other clever hacks.

IIUC, there’s a self-reliance value going on. The grid makes it quite unclear who provides the energy from where, and being reliant on unknown entities outside the village is a non-starter for the Amish.

But what about within the village? I get the impression the Amish are quite okay with transactions and interconnectedness within a village. So my question is - do they ever have a village-wide micro grid? Or even shared power between a couple households? Or are each of them always off-grid on a per-household basis?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

The Amish are not a monolith. You'd have to look into the various groups to get your answer,and it won't apply to all of them. And some do use power on the grid, while others like the Old Order Amish don't use it apart from maybe some battery operated lights for night work or portable fans. I doubt an internal grid is used in most if not all places considering that, while many do not mind use of electricity, it's still used in relative moderation.