Since any discussion of electricity and alternative power systems and devices must, by its very nature, include certain concepts and terms, it is necessary to start at the beginning with a discussion which will allow all of us to achieve at least a basic understanding of what these terms are, and what they mean in relation to the systems and devices we will be discussing.

 

I will attempt to begin to explain the nature of the problem in a manner which is generally understandable and then proceed in stages to the “good stuff” so that I can bring everyone along with me to a common vocabulary and understanding. Whether everyone will be happy with it, I can't say. There will be much explaining to do along the way, and we will need to progress more slowly than some are happy with. So let me begin at the beginning....

 

Most of the folks who are reading this are, intelligent, but not trained in electrical issues. To those people I would suggest that it will be easiest if you think of electricity as a physical liquid. Water would be a good artifice for this visualization.

 

The outlets in your home, when hooked to the power utilities, dispense copious amounts of this liquid, on demand, merely by connecting the pipe (wire) of the device which consumes it to the outlet which supplies it. For this visualization, it would be beneficial for you to visualize your outlet as being a faucet which is an inch in diameter (like a garden hose).

 

Now, any time you need power, you connect to this garden hose sized source of electricity, and as much as you need flows out under high pressure.

 

If you are staying with me, you need to keep in mind that this fluid has both quantity per unit time (such as 5 gallons per hour) and pressure. A proper source must be able to deliver the quantity that your devices need, and at the correct pressure. The words that are used in electricity to denote these quantities are Voltage (pressure) and Current or amperage (quantity per second). A final concept Power (watts) is the pressure (voltage) multiplied by the quantity (amps or current).

 

One final concept to introduce at this time is that there are two different “Flavors” of electricity (continuing our water analogy). One is called AC and the other DC. AC is the “flavor” of power that comes from your wall socket. DC is the flavor that comes from batteries, automobiles, solar panels and many other devices. What you need to know here is that a device (such as a TV set or a washing machine) which is designed to work with one "flavor" of power will be damaged if you try to feed it the other flavor. Thus, one needs to insure that the correct "flavor" of power is provided to the pieces of your power system from the source (solar or wind) to the consumer (TV, lighting, etc). It is possible to change electricity from one flavor to the other, but it requires specific equipment to do this.

 

This is where we will leave the introduction for just the moment. I understand that this is probably way more involved than some readers were hoping for, and way too simplistic for others, but I am trying to bring all of us to a level of knowledge that will permit us to understand what is happening and how to deal with it in the event of a total collapse of the infrastructure. So this is above and beyond a simple "go out and buy this thing" type of description.

 

Trust me. By the time you're done, you'll know as much as you need to select, acquire and set up the equipment you will need to assure that there is a supply of some amount of power to get things done. Not as much as most will be happy with, as most of the devices we own are power guzzlers to the first degree, but enough to get some necessary things done.