I have been living off-grid for about six months. Usually there is no shortage of electricity here. My solar array produces between six and 10 kilowatt hours per day most days. With consumption in the 5-6 range, I generally end up with full batteries at the end of the day.

What I find particularly interesting is how I budget power without thinking about it. It's a lot like when you realize you drive a stick-shift car but never think about shifting or, in my case, just start talking in Spanish because the other person started talking in Spanish.

I have, for example, an electric washing machine and an electric bread maker. Using the washing machine "at the right time" is pretty easy. As my "clothes dryer" is the sun, doing laundry in the morning on a sunny day makes sense. That automatically corresponds with a good time to be using electricity to run the washing machine.

While deciding to make bread is less obvious, after a few months of looking for a sunny day to make bread, it now happens without thinking. That is, I "feel" like making bread when it happens to be sunny.

What's particularly good here is that I have acclimated to being in tune with my energy source. To appreciate how good this is, I need to think back to my U.S.-based life.

Energy consumption was totally isolated from the realities of the supply system. I never thought such things as "gee, let's charge those batteries at night because part of our energy is supplied by nuclear plants and they cannot be 'turned down' at low-load times". I didn't think about how grid losses are lower at times away from peak load. I didn't, well, think about the supply-side of electricity.

The positive side is that I am not being "inconvenienced" by living off-grid. While I am more aware, I still have clean clothes, fresh bread and, in general, a pretty "first-world normal" life as far as energy usage. I just am a bit more in touch with reality.