High-Tech Telecommuting From a Solar Electric Mountainside Home

On an ordinary working day, Xerox employees Janaia Donaldson and Bill Mallgren spend much of the day at their PC's, designing and writing computer software programs. Even though Xerox has work sites all over the country, this is a unique one. It's in the Sierra Nevada foothills -- on their homesite, entirely powered by the sun.

Bill and Janaia are teleworking pioneers who have added alternate energy to the equation. Even though their solar electricity system powers their entire home and office, they still use only one quarter of the electricity of the average American home. On a typical workday, they're powering two PCs, a printer, modems, a fax machine, and often other computer equipment as well. For their personal use, their system powers water pumping, refrigeration, lighting, power construction tools, stereo and household appliances, and a washing machine.

How did it all come to pass? In 1989 these Silicon Valley refugees began to dream of living in the mountains while still working for Xerox. Their manager championed this special arrangement for them with the company. While looking for land near rural Nevada City, they were inspired by their realtor's off-grid home, complete with propane refrigerator and water heater. Seeing it planted a seed in their thoughts -- was alternate energy really a possibility in their situation, with their need to power computers all day long?

The forested property Bill and Janaia found is a mere four miles from Nevada City, and the nearest power pole about a mile away. But the local utility (PG&E) estimated it would cost about $32,000 to run power poles to their homesite, and of course monthly bills forever after.

"It was the perfect excuse to do what we really wanted," Bill said. "It meant we could get solar power for far less than the cost of utility power." And so they did.

Their system also includes a propane generator and battery charger as a backup as there are many gray days in winter. They pump water using a submersible DC well pump, storing the water in two 3000 gallon storage tanks at the surface. A second DC pump pressurizes the water for domestic use.

With consulting from Jonathan Hill of Sierra Solar Systems (formerly Integral Energy Systems), they installed the systems themselves -- mounting panels on poles, wiring, and installing equipment. They added a small room to their manufactured home for batteries and electrical equipment -- a Trace inverter, battery charger, charge controller, and DC load center. Besides monitoring the battery voltage daily, the only maintenance is adding water to the batteries each month, and changing the tilt of the panels bi-annually.

Their home came with standard AC wiring. They added DC wiring for several ceiling fans and lights, and a generous-sized Sunfrost refrigerator. They love to boast that it uses 10% of the elctricity of a comparable ordinary refrigerator.

Their home has skylights in every room, reducing the need for electric lighting (which are mostly compact fluorescents). "It's amusing when guests visit. They reach to turn out the light in a room, and find it was never turned on."

What's it like, living off-grid? "Never a worry about a power outage, or surges that'll zap the computers," says Bill. "And I feel good knowing that, even if in a small way, we're not contributing to another dam or nuclear power plant."

"In winter it keeps us tuned to the weather," says Janaia. "For example, I wash clothes when the sun is shining on the photovoltaic panels. That's because the washing machine is the biggest power user at 700 watts."

They take delight in showing their system to visitors. Occasionally someone accustomed to utility power will exclaim, "and you don't have any electricity out here?"

"Of course we do," say Janaia and Bill, waving a hand at the deep blue panels on the green knoll. "It's the Lone Bobcat Electric Utility, powered by the sun."

This article is a contribution of Sierra Solar Systems.