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How A Prepper Manages Off-Grid Power In A Post-Collapse Country
By Venezuelan Prepper on February 27, 2018
In this series, you will look at what life is like for a family man living in a social and economic collapse. The writer of these posts is a middle-class Venezuelan, in a country which has the*world’s highest inflation rate*at more than*4000%. Venezuela is a*financial collapse nightmare*with extreme shortages of food, riots severe hunger, a crippled economy, crumbling infrastructure,*collapsed*healthcare system, and a failing government.
The Venezuelan collapse has escalated to a*breakdown in social order, putting*Venezuela at the top of Latin America’s*most homicidal nations. The rate of Venezuelans murdered is now 20 times that of the US.
In this post, the*Venezuelan Prepper*speaks of how he works with off-grid power in a post-collapse.
These last few days have been somehow quiet. Of course, so many people have left the country, though. There is a lot less of a crowd that once filled the streets before anything ever happened to what used to be the attractive country of Venezuela.
When we leave the safety of our home, we try to leave just when it is necessary, and come back as soon as we can. It is hard for the kids, but there is even more crime these days as lawlessness and desperation grow. Some fast-food restaurants, that have managed to stay open through charging high rates, expect to be looted at any given moment.
The Venezuelan power grid problem
A Venezuelan family have dinner by candlelight, a common practice in the country. Photo: Getty Images.
And while things were already bad, they’re about to get worse. I want to inform you that there has been a very recent and important event for the normal development of our lives in post-collapse Venezuela. There has been evidence shared through social networks submitted by one of the electricity workers union, and mentions that a lot of personnel (close to 60%) have abandoned their works posts to leave the country because of the low salaries, the food scarcity, crime, and the increasing threats with imprisonment for those who decide to quit their jobs now.
The guy informed as well that this would not be a problem under normal circumstances, but there is no proper document management, with the protocols and procedures that new employees could use for maintenance and operation of the systems. This is a major failure as a company, and it would be useless to blame someone for this now, but the problem is there.
The potential of a major failure of the grid is to be expected in the next few weeks, this will be the point of no return for Venezuela. The country is shutting down entirely now.
Without electricity, I believe that we all agree that we will have to forget the oil production, and the other few industries left, the water pumping, and the frozen food. This is going to be really bad in a few more weeks.
How am I going to approach this power problem as a prepper?
How am I going to approach this and organize my own off-grid power system? As a prepper, my approach is to downsize my household’s energy consumption, but that would have needed a large amount of investment in a mixed off-grid power system. For instance, using solar and wind and a large enough battery rack, and a good generator.
I would like to elaborate more about this reality we are living in at the moment. We were tempted once to exchange our home for an apartment, a nice one with a bit more luxury. But none of us had lived in an apartment before. We treasure our privacy, and having pets is not as comfortable as what it is in a house. In a house we could have the bike parked in the front porch, and do some basic maintenance to the vehicles.
There is another advantage, we could run our generator in the front yard. If the water service fails, usually when the power is gone, there is always some water left in the pipelines because it comes from an elevated tank. We solved the problem with a potential lack of water service with a 1500 liter tank, in our small backyard, over a column. This is a common solution here and this tank should provide enough water for about*three weeks, for the three of us (my older kid is in college out of town).
The energy problem was a little more complicated, as we have three large air conditioning systems. Most households or apartments have it as Venezuela can get ridiculously hot in the summer. Sleeping at night without air conditioning is a nightmare. The investment needed for solar was a lot of money, so we decided to buy a Duromax 4,400w generator and three jerrycans. This is enough for three days, with low load on the generator, as we discover later.
We partially resolved the off-grid power issue for a while. However, now the threat is much greater, and is a much more potentially dangerous situation with a general power failure throughout the entire country. This means permanently living off my own power supplies. That also means essentially going back 80 years in time, where the tyrants roamed free at night, and the thieves were not afraid to hide in the dark and wait for some poor victim.
Balancing off-grid power through solar and fuel
How A Prepper Manages Off-Grid Power In A Post-Collapse Country
By Venezuelan Prepper on February 27, 2018
In this series, you will look at what life is like for a family man living in a social and economic collapse. The writer of these posts is a middle-class Venezuelan, in a country which has the*world’s highest inflation rate*at more than*4000%. Venezuela is a*financial collapse nightmare*with extreme shortages of food, riots severe hunger, a crippled economy, crumbling infrastructure,*collapsed*healthcare system, and a failing government.
The Venezuelan collapse has escalated to a*breakdown in social order, putting*Venezuela at the top of Latin America’s*most homicidal nations. The rate of Venezuelans murdered is now 20 times that of the US.
In this post, the*Venezuelan Prepper*speaks of how he works with off-grid power in a post-collapse.
These last few days have been somehow quiet. Of course, so many people have left the country, though. There is a lot less of a crowd that once filled the streets before anything ever happened to what used to be the attractive country of Venezuela.
When we leave the safety of our home, we try to leave just when it is necessary, and come back as soon as we can. It is hard for the kids, but there is even more crime these days as lawlessness and desperation grow. Some fast-food restaurants, that have managed to stay open through charging high rates, expect to be looted at any given moment.
The Venezuelan power grid problem
A Venezuelan family have dinner by candlelight, a common practice in the country. Photo: Getty Images.
And while things were already bad, they’re about to get worse. I want to inform you that there has been a very recent and important event for the normal development of our lives in post-collapse Venezuela. There has been evidence shared through social networks submitted by one of the electricity workers union, and mentions that a lot of personnel (close to 60%) have abandoned their works posts to leave the country because of the low salaries, the food scarcity, crime, and the increasing threats with imprisonment for those who decide to quit their jobs now.
The guy informed as well that this would not be a problem under normal circumstances, but there is no proper document management, with the protocols and procedures that new employees could use for maintenance and operation of the systems. This is a major failure as a company, and it would be useless to blame someone for this now, but the problem is there.
The potential of a major failure of the grid is to be expected in the next few weeks, this will be the point of no return for Venezuela. The country is shutting down entirely now.
Without electricity, I believe that we all agree that we will have to forget the oil production, and the other few industries left, the water pumping, and the frozen food. This is going to be really bad in a few more weeks.
How am I going to approach this power problem as a prepper?
How am I going to approach this and organize my own off-grid power system? As a prepper, my approach is to downsize my household’s energy consumption, but that would have needed a large amount of investment in a mixed off-grid power system. For instance, using solar and wind and a large enough battery rack, and a good generator.
I would like to elaborate more about this reality we are living in at the moment. We were tempted once to exchange our home for an apartment, a nice one with a bit more luxury. But none of us had lived in an apartment before. We treasure our privacy, and having pets is not as comfortable as what it is in a house. In a house we could have the bike parked in the front porch, and do some basic maintenance to the vehicles.
There is another advantage, we could run our generator in the front yard. If the water service fails, usually when the power is gone, there is always some water left in the pipelines because it comes from an elevated tank. We solved the problem with a potential lack of water service with a 1500 liter tank, in our small backyard, over a column. This is a common solution here and this tank should provide enough water for about*three weeks, for the three of us (my older kid is in college out of town).
The energy problem was a little more complicated, as we have three large air conditioning systems. Most households or apartments have it as Venezuela can get ridiculously hot in the summer. Sleeping at night without air conditioning is a nightmare. The investment needed for solar was a lot of money, so we decided to buy a Duromax 4,400w generator and three jerrycans. This is enough for three days, with low load on the generator, as we discover later.
We partially resolved the off-grid power issue for a while. However, now the threat is much greater, and is a much more potentially dangerous situation with a general power failure throughout the entire country. This means permanently living off my own power supplies. That also means essentially going back 80 years in time, where the tyrants roamed free at night, and the thieves were not afraid to hide in the dark and wait for some poor victim.
Balancing off-grid power through solar and fuel
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