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This text describes the challenges faced by households living off the mains electricity grid in remote rural areas of the UK, with a particular focus on Northumberland. Here are the key points summarized:
– Vanessa Corby lives off-grid with solar panels and a generator but prefers a mains electricity connection. She was quoted £44,000 in 2017 for a connection, but access issues prevented it. Managing off-grid power systems is difficult, especially as she ages, with no special support services for off-grid pensioners.
– Doris Engelmayer also lives off-grid nearby and has to drive to collect diesel for her generator since oil companies won’t deliver to her home. She worries about the long-term sustainability of her off-grid setup.
– Anne Hutchinson, in her 80s, has lived off-grid near Wark for decades. In 2000 she and her neighbors were quoted £180,000 for a mains connection, which was prohibitively expensive. She relies on a generator and solar panels but still limits energy use carefully.
– Steve Batey received a quote of £478,000 in 2013 for an underground connection for several properties in a national park and has accepted mains electricity will not arrive soon for him.
– Ofgem (the UK energy regulator) does not have exact data on how many UK households live off-grid but estimated about 2,000 in 2019. Northumberland has a known cluster of such properties.
– The charity Community Action Northumberland (CAN) estimates around 450 off-grid homes in the county and describes the situation as “appalling” and leaving people “behind.” Generators are costly, noisy, and polluting; residents must constantly monitor energy use, causing stress.
– Northumberland’s geography (large, sparsely populated uplands) and rural poverty contribute to the lack of electric grid connections. The cost of extending infrastructure is high compared to the number of users.
– Historically, remote rural areas were low priority in 20th-century electrification programs, and many off-grid residents never received free connections, leaving them with expensive alternatives.
This highlights the ongoing issues for remote rural households regarding energy access, the prohibitive costs of connecting to the mains grid, and reliance on alternative but less convenient and more polluting energy sources
Read the full article from The BBC here: Read More
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