While going off the grid is hardly a new concept, the idea that an entire town might be able to do it certainly is. There are thousands of people currently living self sustaining lives off the grid lives but, aside from the Amish community in Pennsylvania, no one anywhere else in the world is trying to do it on a large scale.
A small town, called Almere, located just 20 miles outside the city of Amsterdam in The Netherlands intends to do just that. They are looking to build a self sustaining town with absolutely no reliance on the grid matrix. The California based company that is helping to get it off the ground hopes that the project will inspire other communities all over Scandinavia and the rest of Europe to do the same.
The only apparent glitch is, unlike the Amish who are totally off the grid, this Dutch town will still rely on the ability to go high tech when they need to. They hope is that more and more towns and villages will go this way. The project will, however, harness modern technology for water supplies and filtration as well as for growing food.
James Erlich, the CEO of RenVillages, the California based developer in charge of the project, said that, “We’re really looking at starting off as the Tesla of eco villages. We are redefining residential real estate development by creating these regenerative neighborhoods, looking at first at these green field pieces of farmland where we can produce more organic food, more clean water, more clean energy and migrate more waste than if we just left that land to grow organic food or do permaculture there.”
What the villagers hope to accomplish is live like they are on the grid, with access to all that they need, without having to be a part of the overall corruption and privacy invasions and soaring costs. In addition, they will be selling their excess electricity back to the nearby electric companies in an effort to generate continuous revenue for the village.
For now there are 25 pilot homes ready to go with the expectation of there being 100 homes by the end of 2017.
PHOTO CREDITS: Themindunleashed.org