Laura Stovel is outside her downtown Revelstoke home, cooking dinner. In one oven, she’s heating up leftover cauliflower curry, and in the other she has a chicken dinner, also leftover.
It’s about 3:30 in the afternoon, but the heating process has to start early because Stovel is using solar ovens. While they can heat up to 250 F, everything takes a little longer.
“This cooks very effectively, but it didn’t cook my French toast in time,” she says.
Stovel is embarking on an experiment this summer. She’s turned off the power to her home in an attempt to minimize her energy use. She’s installed a 250 watt solar panel on her roof and has unplugged almost all her appliances.
She’s cooking using solar ovens and bought a hand-powered blender and solar water boiler. She is brewing up several infusion teas on her windowsill.
It’s all part of a project she’s calling, “My Off the Grid Summer.”
“For some time I have wanted to live off the grid and fossil fuel free. This summer I decided to do just that,” she wrote. “On July 1st I will turn off the power in the electrical panel of my home and will live off the grid for two months in downtown Revelstoke, B.C. Most of my energy consumption will come from the sun and from my own physical exertion. I will have one 250-watt solar panel, one 12-volt deep cycle battery and will cook with solar cookers. I invite you to join me on my journey.”
I met up with Stovel on day two of her journey. She was re-positioning her solar ovens so they were directly facing the sun. One oven was purchased online, while the other she built with help from local woodworker Ken Talbot. They both feature metallic interiors which reflect the heat and concentrate it in small space. It’s a slow-process – “Really slow cooking,” Stovel says – and it requires moving the ovens periodically to make sure they stay facing the sun.
“Solar cooking is slow cooking and it is forcing me to slow down,” she wrote in her blog. “For someone who is always rushing, that is a very good thing.
She showed me her makeshift washing machine, which consisted of a wood contraption she could plunge up and down into a bucket of soapy water.
For Stovel, the idea of going off the grid has been with her for a long time. When she was in university in the mid-80s in Kenya, she wrote several papers on the use of solar technology. She has spent time living in different African countries, where centralized energy distribution is far less widespread than it is in Canada, so people find their owns ways of generating power.
“This is a way of building some skills and pursuing a passion of mine, but also addressing a crisis that’s coming in terms of climate change, and how we can live lighter off the land,” she told me.
It’s also about her own journey of discovery, to look at the bad habits she feels results from easy access to energy.
“It’s my theory that with the rushed life that I have, I compensate by wasting,” she says. “The easy access to fuel compensates for an imbalance in life.”
PHOTO: A cauliflower curry heats up inside Stovel’s homemade solar oven. Photo by Alex Cooper, Revelstoke Review
Stovel has set several rules for herself during her two months going off-the-grid. She’s allowing herself two return car trips a month and she can drive for work, if necessary. If she’s invited to a dinner party, she has to bring a solar-cooked meal with her.
Otherwise, her energy use is confined to what can be generated by her 250 watt solar panel and energy stored in the 12 volt car battery it is hooked up to. She uses that to power a small fridge, two lights and an outlet she can use to recharge batteries. She might be able to get away with more, but she wants to challenge herself.
“I wanted to have to do the math on how much energy I use, so I wanted to push the limit,” she said. “I did’t want extra solar panels or extra batteries to take over what Hydro would do. I wanted to live close to the edge.”
One thing she talked about was her carbon budget. The idea came from Hermann Bruns of Wild Flight Farms, who brought up the concept of everyone having a fixed amount of carbon they were allowed to use. Every time you made a purchase, the carbon impact would be deducted from your limit until you run out.
“It’s an energy thing,” Stovel said. “It’s to prove we can live a lot lighter on energy.”
While she was only on day two of her two-month experiment, Stovel was already learning to reverse some bad habits like making sure she gets work done efficiently when she turns on her lap top, and turning it off when she’s done.
She hopes people will follow her blog and look at their own energy usage.
“What I’m really curious about is what I won’t go back to,” she said. “I think I might not use all my gadgets. Keep my processor and not go back to my blender.”
You can follow Stovel’s progress at myoffthegridsummer.blogspot.ca
