Living Energy Farm is a pioneering off-grid project in central Virginia. They have developed relatively low-cost methods for taking advantage of solar energy in the form of passive solar-thermal systems for space heating and water heating as well as DC electricity. Their “DC microgrids” systems power household appliances and computers/phones, in addition to a wide array of hand tools and shop tools. This is accomplished by efficient “daylight drive” using power from PV panels to directly run DC motors, or by using energy stored in robust nickel-iron batteries.

They have also prototyped an array of low-cost homestead technologies used for biogas systems, drying seeds and foodstuffs, harvesting crops and doing other “tractor work.”

This fast-paced conversation outlines the technologies developed by LEF and contextualizes them in Alexis’ and community members’ philosophy of practical non-nonsense environmental technologies for achieving good quality of life as an antidote to typical, mainstream, middle class, bourgeois environmentalism.

Learn more about their work:

livingenergyfarm.org

livingenergylights.com