Backwoods Solar Electric Systems
Steve and Elizabeth Willey
8530 Rapid Lightning Creek Road
Sandpoint, Idaho 83864
(208) 263-4290

When young Quaker vegetarian newlyweds Steve and Elizabeth Willey decided to build their home on an isolated Idaho mountaintop some 15 years ago, they came in for a shocking surprise: Idaho Power Co. wanted a cool $24,000 to run electricity to their cabin a dozen miles north of Sandpoint.

"We didn't have it, and we couldn't get it," Steve said. But rather than giving up their dream, he responded creatively, building a tower and erecting a windmill to drive an electric generator. Neighbors saw it, wanted one of their own, and Steve started making a few extra bucks by building windmill-powered systems for folks all along the incredibly scenic mountain country along Lake Pend Orielle in the Idaho Panhandle.

It didn't take him long to discover, though, that while wind power is an unpredictable energy source in this region, solar power had vast potential. Gathering a few friends into an informal cooperative, he taught himself the rudiments of photovoltaic power, bought parts and equipment, and started selling the equipment while preaching the new gospel of independent home energy. Over the ensuing years, he's built a mailing list of between 10,000 and 20,000 subscribers to his newsletter and catalog, developed a business that he says is all he can handle, and become something of a national expert in the realm of cheap, efficient solar power for individuals.

To this day, no electric wires run into the Willeys' charming modern home, a free-form wooden building with a hexagonal extension and a tall, narrow multistory tower rising through the pine trees that cloak the mountain. It's no spartan rural shack, either, but a large home full of modern amenities, including computers, televisions, a microwave oven, even an electrical-powered vibrating recliner ... and it's all powered by solar cells, wind power and a rarely used backup generator fired by propane, channeled through heavy industrial batteries and an inverter system that converts the power into usable alternating current.

Although this is a business, not a non-profit, and Willey doesn't think of his operation as a traditional poverty program, he's well aware of the implications of solar and wind power for poor people, ranging from solar and stream-powered irrigation for sustainable agriculture to the simple reality that, for rural poor people, a solar system, once installed, runs on a literally endless source of free power. While major utilities speak of solar power as a dream unfulfilled, requiring an unrealistic $60,000 or more to set up a system to run a traditional suburban family home, Willey notes that the wise use of insulation, passive solar principles and modern, low-energy appliances and lighting can cut that to a fraction. He's set up a minimal system in one nearby mountain home for $1,500, and most of the independent-home systems he sells range from $6,000 to $9,000.

When the electric bills stop coming, that looks like a good price.

All the feature stories on @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG's pages are reported and written by Robin Garr, a prize-winning journalist who has visited more than 500 innovative grassroots programs in all 50 states since 1990.

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