7,016 ft (2.1 km for my European friends) is the length of my driveway. That is also the distance to the nearest PG&E (California power company) connection point.

When I bought my property in 2008 I called PG&E to get a quote for supplying power to the house. The local building code now requires an underground cable which makes it considerable more expensive than ariel wires. PG&E was kind enough to estimate the installation fee to about $100/ft or in other words – $700,000 to supply power to my house. A local contractor could probably do the same job for half the cost so say $350,000 which is still a hefty sum of money for power if you have to carry that alone.

So the idea of living off-grid was born.