When you think of someone going off-grid, living in a house that's entirely self-sufficient,

with no connection to the utility companies most of us count on to power all our stuff,

you may be pictures some sort of doomsday prepper in a unibomor shed out there in the

wilderness.

But Ivan Penn says that's not the reality.

Sure, there are those who are living in the tiny homes, rusted cabins, but would really

surprise me, was there are people in just really modern middle-class homes.

And in some cases, very large estates, some with hot tubs, swimming pools, and they were

operating entirely without any connection to the electric grid.

Ivan is the renewable energy correspondent for the New York Times, and he recently reported

on people who chosen to go off-grid, setting up solar panels and battery systems so they

can disconnect our homes from the utility company's power lines.

What he found was that they weren't necessarily tree-hugging hippies, but they weren't necessarily

survival preparedness types who are obsessed with self-reliance either.

In most cases, the emotions driving people's decisions to go off-grid are more familiar

than you might expect.

People always have this love-hate relationship with the utility companies.

We want to make sure that the lights stay on, but we get upset one when we get the bill

and two when the power goes out.

The idea of being able to have your own energy independence, I think that that is a compelling

thing for all of us.

One off-gridder who Ivan interviewed, a tech executive in California, boasted about the

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