I am lucky enough to have a dad who is an electrical engineer. He planned and installed all the electrical systems in the Carabane. He's the one who really should be writing this post- but I am going to try to explain everything in layperson's terms! Production, consumption and storage I want to come as close as possible to self-sufficiency. In terms of electricity, self-sufficiency is a function of 1) how much power I consume 2) how much power I can produce 3) how much power I can store. So to reduce the power consumption to the maximum, I decided to heat via gas (and not electricity). I do not have a kettle, a vacuum cleaner, television, or microwave. The electrical load is therefore reduced to : the fridge, LED lighting, charging my phone, laptop and other portable devices, 3 ventilation fans (stove, heater, and toilet), and a hand blender in the kitchen. We calculated the power use to be about 1 kwH per day. The fridge takes about half of that- it's by far the larges