The off-grid
home package.
Solar generation, battery storage and backup power, considered together with the home they serve. Explore the systems and the planning behind greater energy independence.
Buy 50 years of energy once, instead of renting forever.
A conventional house rents its energy. Every month, forever, you pay a utility for electricity delivered down a wire, at whatever price they set.
This package replaces that arrangement with equipment you own. Solar panels make the electricity, batteries hold it until you need it, and a propane generator covers the stretches when the sun cannot keep up. The cost sits inside the mortgage rather than arriving as a bill for the rest of your life.
Two heat sources. Two power sources. Never cold and dark.
A grid-connected house has one electricity source and usually one heat source. When the line goes down in an ice storm, it is cold and dark. This house is not.
Every house has four jobs. Off-grid handles each one.
A grid house only has to solve one job.
The reason an off-grid home costs more up front: you are buying the whole chain, not plugging into the end of it.
| The job | Grid house | Off-grid house |
|---|---|---|
| Make electricity | The utility does it, somewhere else | Solar panel array on the roof or alternative sources |
| Store it for later | Not needed, the grid is always there | Electric vehicle battery plus a 40 kWh house bank |
| Cover the gap | The utility, or a generator in an outage | Gas generator on an automatic transfer switch |
| Heating and Cooling | Furnace or baseboards | Cold-climate air source heat pump plus an in-floor slab on an electric boiler |
How the parts connect.
Sunlight enters at the array and leaves as heat, hot water and light. Every arrow is a real cable or a real pipe, including the two that make an unserviced lot habitable.
The panels change angle with the season.
A fixed array is a compromise in both directions. Adjustable mounts let the same panels chase a low winter sun and shed snow, then lie back for the high summer arc.
Steep, to catch a low sun and shed snow
In December the sun barely clears the horizon. Standing the panels up puts their face square to a low arc instead of skimming light across it, and the same angle means snow slides off under its own weight rather than sitting there blanking the array.
Approx. 60° from horizontalLaid back, for the high summer arc
In July the sun tracks high and long. Dropping the panels toward horizontal turns their face up into that arc and lengthens the productive part of the day. There is no snow to manage, so nothing argues for keeping them steep.
Approx. 20° from horizontalTwo adjustments a year, made from the ground. It is the cheapest yield the array will ever give you, and it works hardest in exactly the month the system is under most pressure.
The heat pump does not fail in the cold. It stops being a bargain.
A heat pump does not burn fuel. It moves heat from outdoor air into the house. When the air is mild there is plenty to move and it is cheap. When it is bitter there is less out there, and moving it costs more electricity.
The measure is COP: units of heat delivered per unit of electricity consumed. A COP of 3 means you got three for the price of one. A COP of 1 is exactly what you paid for, the same as an electric baseboard.
| Outdoor temperature | What runs | COP |
|---|---|---|
| +8 °C and up | Heat pump alone | 3.2 |
| −8 °C to −15 °C | Heat pump alone | 2.2 → 1.9 |
| −20 °C to −30 °C | Heat pump fading, the slab carries the peak | 1.9 → 1.3 |
| Below −30 °C | Heat pump off, electric boiler carries the slab | 1.0 |
The heat pump keeps working down to −30 °C. At that temperature it delivers 1.3 units of heat per unit of electricity, barely better than a baseboard heater. Below that the electric boiler takes the slab at a COP of 1.0. The house stays warm either way. It is a cost question, not a comfort question.
In January, three things go wrong at once.
The house needs the most heat it will ever need. The heat pump is at its least efficient. The panels are at their weakest, producing roughly one fifth of a July day.
Peak demand lands exactly on minimum supply, and solar surplus does not keep. You cannot bank July sunshine until January. This is the fundamental constraint of off-grid living in Canada. It is not a design flaw anyone can engineer away, and it can only be managed.
Annual array output is roughly 18,400 kWh, delivered very unevenly
The house needs about 6.5 times what the array can make that month. Whatever fills that gap determines whether the whole package works financially.
What is in the package, and what each part is for.
The solar array is the only thing in the system that actually makes energy. Everything else moves it, stores it, converts it, or covers for it.
As specified, the package does not pay off.
Modelled over fifty years, financed in the mortgage, against a grid house paying $1,000 a month in utilities, with credit given for the gasoline the EV replaces. The model was run on the smaller 15 kWh bank, so the as-specified case below is slightly better than the larger battery would show.
The reason for the first number is the January gap and what fills it. Burning $10,400 of propane a year to make electricity consumes nearly the entire $12,000 utility bill the system was meant to eliminate, and it arrives on top of the $1,362 monthly payment for the equipment.
Three changes that turn it positive.
None of them is exotic. Two cost nothing at all.
- 01Decide whether January heat should be electricAs designed the heating is all electric, so every backup kilowatt-hour in January arrives through the generator, which converts about 25% of its fuel into electricity. A propane boiler on the same in-floor loops would deliver heat at about 95% from the same tank. That is the single largest saving available, worth roughly $40,000 in present value, and it is the one decision that changes the shape of the whole system. It is not in the current scope.
- 02Take the truck out of the energy packageCharging it is 8,400 kWh a year, 23% of the house's entire electrical load, and the single biggest reason the array has to be so large. Buy the truck if you want the truck. Just do not ask a January solar array to charge it. This is the change that flips the sign.
- 03Spend on the envelope before spending on panelsDropping design heat loss from 12 kW to 8 kW removes more winter propane than $45,000 of additional panels does, and costs less. Insulation works at night and in December. Panels do not.
Break-even is a saw, not a smooth line.
Even the configuration that works is about $264 a month behind on cashflow in year one. It wins on the back end, not on day one.
- 01The equipment does not all last fifty yearsInverters, batteries and charge controllers wear out on their own schedule, and each replacement sets the clock back. A clean straight line to break-even has left the replacements out, and a sharp buyer or lender will find that.
- 02The comparison bill decides the answerEvery figure here assumes a grid house paying $1,000 a month. A tight new build on a rural lot often runs $500 to $700. At $600 the case is thin. At $400 it does not work at all.
- 03The resilience is not in the modelTwo heat sources and two power sources have real value on a rural property in an ice storm. No payback calculation captures it, and it should not be used to rescue one either.
The heat pump model number. The −30 °C performance belongs to the 2026 Central-Moov, outdoor unit MSHMA48R2AN1, R-454B refrigerant. The mechanical scope sheet lists DMA48HOS20230E7, the earlier R-410A generation rated for full capacity only to −15.6 °C. Same product family, different machine. The design here assumes the newer unit.
The utility bill being compared against. Get twelve months of real bills from a comparable house before anyone quotes a payoff figure.
Financial figures from the fifty-year model. Equipment specifications from the Moovair Central-Moov brochure, March 2026, the NTI Boilers FTVN199 submittal, and GM Energy V2H documentation. Heat loss and array sizing are modelled estimates. A site-specific heat loss calculation is required before construction.
The MAE Method
The envelope decisions that decide how much energy the house needs in the first place. On an off-grid build they matter more, not less.
See the method Ready when you areStart your project
Tell us about the land. The energy system is sized from a heat loss calculation for your site, not from a package price.
Begin your projectPlanning an off-grid home?
Share your site and priorities so we can discuss the options.