With the acreage you have, you can do more than we can. We have only a very tiny amount of land. We didn't want to store a lot of gasoline or propane near the house, and also considered if there is no gasoline or propane available, it's not going to help us. But good you have a way to store a supply. We have very limited solar, like what someone might use for camping - it will run a microwave oven for a short time, or power small things - it's nothing like having full-service electricity. But it did seem like it would take forever fro the complete solar system to pay for itself, and it also is tied into the power grid, and what if the power grid doesn't exist at some point... If I would have known and could have done it 30 years ago, maybe, but not for us at our age. Oh, I see as I type this, someone else has written about camouflaging the tanks - that is another potential problem, but sounds like you may live off the beaten path with that many acres. For a gas or propane generator, you have to have enough fuel, safely stored, and where others don't know about it - I decided there were some of those reasons that made that not the best for us, and the high gas prices. For those who have not yet gotten alternative energy figured out, there are portable solar panels that will recharge power stations and some are powerful enough to run even large appliances - you can plug in the electric cords into the "power station." We didn't get the largest possible, and figured, we won't be able to power everything as we do today, but for an emergency, we can take care of a few basics. Having solar panels for your water pump is smart.
With the acreage you have, you can do more than we can. We have only a very tiny amount of land. We didn't want to store a lot of gasoline or propane near the house, and also considered if there is no gasoline or propane available, it's not going to help us. But good you have a way to store a supply. We have very limited solar, like what someone might use for camping - it will run a microwave oven for a short time, or power small things - it's nothing like having full-service electricity. But it did seem like it would take forever fro the complete solar system to pay for itself, and it also is tied into the power grid, and what if the power grid doesn't exist at some point... If I would have known and could have done it 30 years ago, maybe, but not for us at our age. Oh, I see as I type this, someone else has written about camouflaging the tanks - that is another potential problem, but sounds like you may live off the beaten path with that many acres. For a gas or propane generator, you have to have enough fuel, safely stored, and where others don't know about it - I decided there were some of those reasons that made that not the best for us, and the high gas prices. For those who have not yet gotten alternative energy figured out, there are portable solar panels that will recharge power stations and some are powerful enough to run even large appliances - you can plug in the electric cords into the "power station." We didn't get the largest possible, and figured, we won't be able to power everything as we do today, but for an emergency, we can take care of a few basics. Having solar panels for your water pump is smart.