The trend toward homes that are powered by alternative energy sources, ranging from wind turbines and solar collection cells to hydrogen fuel cells and biomass gases is one that needs to continue far into the 21st century and beyond.

We as individuals need to get “off the grid” where we can. It is imperative to stop being completely reliant on giant oil corporations and mainstream grid suppliers who have the monoploy in their particular sectors. Thus they have a stranglehold on people when it comes to power sources for home power needs such as heating, lighting and so on.

 As Remi Wilkinson, Senior Analyst with Carbon Free, has put it: 

 "Inevitably, the growth of distributed generation will lead to the restructuring of the retail electricity market and the generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure. The power providers may have to diversify their business to make up for revenues lost through household energy microgeneration."

She is referring to the conclusions drawn by a group of UK analysts, herself included, who call themselves Carbon Free.

Carbon Free has been studying the ever-growing trend toward alternative energy-using homes in England and the West. A trend driven by:

	the rising cost of oil and other fossil fuels
	the desire of countries to become energy independent
	ever-more government recommendations
	backing by alternative energy research and development
	concern about environmental degradation and

 Carbon Free concludes that microgeneration, in other words, meeting all one's home energy needs by installing alternative energy technology such as solar panels or wind turbines, will become to home energy supply what the Internet became to home communications and data gathering. Eventually, this will deeply effect the businesses of the existing energy supply companies. They will need to adapt or die!

In fact, Carbon Free's analysis already shows that energy companies are jumping on the bandwagon and are seeking to leverage microgeneration to their own advantage. Carbon Free gives the example of UK electricity companies reporting that they are seriously researching and developing ideas for new geothermal energy facilities, as they see geothermal energy production as a highly profitable option for supplying the energy needs of the future.

Carbon Free also conclude that solar power water heating technology is an efficient technology for reducing home water heating costs in the long run, although it is initially quite expensive to install.  However, solar power is not yet cost-effective for corporations, as they require too much in the way of specialized plumbing to install solar energy hot water heating systems.

Lastly, Carbon Free tells us that installing wind turbines is another efficient way of reducing home electricity costs. However, again this is initially very expensive to have installed. It is recommended that companies begin seriously reducing their prices on these devices or they could find themselves losing market share.