Powering People Project
After 3 months of digging, we still can’t say how many homes are off the mains electricity grid in the UK.
As part of our new project, Powering People, NICRE and CAN have been exploring everything we do and don’t know about off-grid households in the UK. We can’t seem to pin down the answer to what we thought would be a straightforward question - just how many domestic properties are off the mains electricity grid across the country?
We know from past research carried out by CAN and the Rural Design Centre in Northumberland that a number of rural homes are not, and have never been, connected to mains electricity. Some people live off-grid by choice, building self-sufficient homes that can supply their own energy from solar panels, wind turbines or other renewable sources. However, thousands of households are estimated to be off the electricity grid because their home is too old, or too remote, to have ever been connected. But exactly how many are there?
