Living off-grid in Quebec: what nobody tells you
The number of buildings that are not connected to Hydro-Québec grows every year, and not only out of environmental conviction. In many cases the decision is purely economic: bringing a line to a cottage a kilometre from the nearest pole can cost far more than a complete solar system, and that is before the monthly bill.
The main constraint is not technical, it is thermal. Producing 10 kWh a day with solar is perfectly achievable. Heating a Quebec house with electricity calls for 40 to 80 kWh a day in January. No reasonable residential solar system gets there. Off-grid living works here because the heat comes from wood or propane, not in spite of it.
The second reality has to do with your relationship to time. An off-grid system asks for a seasonal kind of attention: you do the laundry on sunny days, you watch the state of charge before a week of overcast weather, you accept starting the generator three or four times a winter. It is not a painful constraint, but it is a genuine change of habits.
The third one, happier, is reliability. A well-designed installation rides out a three-day regional outage without anyone inside noticing. During the January ice storm, several of our off-grid customers took in neighbours who were on the grid. That reversal tends to stay with people.
If the project appeals to you, the first step is always the same: count your kilowatt-hours. Everything else follows from that, and we are available at 418-809-9738 to go through the exercise with you.
