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I got the most recent Home Power Magazine and was surprised to see that it was the last issue. I had suspected they were running out of steam as it the issues were getting smaller and the subscriber base was getting slimmer. The official post office subscriber report showed total subscriptions in the six thousands. Still 31 years is a long run for a specialty magazine and is good snapshot of the growth of solar. I have one of their CDs that have all the back issues back to the first free newsletter and its definitely interested to look back. I would hope that they archive these issues but given what appears to be a rushed last issue I am not sure how well they will close out the business.
I first heard about it from my brother who was into off grid and had run into the magazine on an early pre world wide web off gird bulletin board. I am not sure when he officially subscribed but I saw some of his early issues and they were one step up from a newsletter. The content was definitely hippie versus survivalist. The vast majority of the articles were written by users on how they did their own projects, some definitely needed to be taken with grain of salt. It was definitely long before codes and standards were applied to PV. Some of the content was definitely out of there including a monthly article by the Wizard that appeared to written by someone on some hallucinogen. Nevertheless it was the best source of info on the growth of solar and other off grid technology. Many of the early solar suppliers advertised on it. It was mostly a west coast oriented magazine although there was small vermont contingent with others sprinkled around the country in rural pockets. I have heard that some of the early growth in off grid solar was somewhat tied to west coast pot growers needing power for their operations but the magazine always seemed to avoid direct references to pot although I expect a fair share of the herb was grown and consumed.
I started subscribing early in the grid tied era before it was legal in many areas. Trace had an early small grid tied inverter that met UL 1471 that was affordable, the typical install would scare most current users as they tended to be a couple of panels routed to the inverter which then plugged into a outlet. The utility industry was opposed to small grid connected solar and made interconnections illegal or applied onerous standards set up for major power plants to home solar. Home Power's owner elected to push "guerrilla solar" where folks installed grid tied solar with no permits. The systems usually were small due to the cost of panels and tended to offset home usage so rarely did the generation run the monthly usage to negative. Many utility meters installed at the time were mechanical and did not have "ratchets" to prevent spinning backwards. This was definitely the "chicken and egg" era of grid tied solar. Solar was generally dumped on by utilities and there was not enough money to be made to get politicians interested in upsetting the usually deep pocketed utilities. Eventually net metering rules were put in place starting in west coast states and a few other areas like VT and they slowly spread which allowed the early industry to ramp up production and costs to come down. There was a 10% tax credit when I installed my first small array but once the 30% federal credit kicked in solar went mainstream and never looked back although the Koch's are having mixed success in trying to slow it down.
In parallel there was a small professional solar business growing to support telecom and other off grid power needs. The professional side was the province of electrical engineers and expect there was some derision by the pros of the Home Power approach which tended to be "home brew". I worked with a few early pros at Northern Power for a short time in later years and it was obvious they looked at Home Power with mixed feelings. I also ran into several folks in rural Vermont that had experienced the results of "home brew" off grid solar. The conversation usually would touch on "after the fire" or "after the winter of having to lug gas to run the generator until they could afford to replace the batteries". Used gear could usually be found for sale in the local "trader magazines" that existed long before Craig's list as folks either moved onto the grid or just gave up.
In the later years the articles got far less home brew and they started to be far more high end systems designed and installed by pros. There was still DIY in the background but the shift was how to DIY and make it code legal as codes caught up to solar. There also was probably a concern for the liability to the magazine. Solar was going mainstream and I expect in order to get the glossy full page ads they had to go legit.
I personally still read the new issues but definitely was debating if it was worth re-upping my subscription. Given the general demise in print magazines and the shift to free online content I expect the publisher came to the same conclusion that it was time to go. II did get lot out of it over the years and designed and installed my three PV arrays and my Solar Hot Water system from things I learned in the magazine.
I first heard about it from my brother who was into off grid and had run into the magazine on an early pre world wide web off gird bulletin board. I am not sure when he officially subscribed but I saw some of his early issues and they were one step up from a newsletter. The content was definitely hippie versus survivalist. The vast majority of the articles were written by users on how they did their own projects, some definitely needed to be taken with grain of salt. It was definitely long before codes and standards were applied to PV. Some of the content was definitely out of there including a monthly article by the Wizard that appeared to written by someone on some hallucinogen. Nevertheless it was the best source of info on the growth of solar and other off grid technology. Many of the early solar suppliers advertised on it. It was mostly a west coast oriented magazine although there was small vermont contingent with others sprinkled around the country in rural pockets. I have heard that some of the early growth in off grid solar was somewhat tied to west coast pot growers needing power for their operations but the magazine always seemed to avoid direct references to pot although I expect a fair share of the herb was grown and consumed.
I started subscribing early in the grid tied era before it was legal in many areas. Trace had an early small grid tied inverter that met UL 1471 that was affordable, the typical install would scare most current users as they tended to be a couple of panels routed to the inverter which then plugged into a outlet. The utility industry was opposed to small grid connected solar and made interconnections illegal or applied onerous standards set up for major power plants to home solar. Home Power's owner elected to push "guerrilla solar" where folks installed grid tied solar with no permits. The systems usually were small due to the cost of panels and tended to offset home usage so rarely did the generation run the monthly usage to negative. Many utility meters installed at the time were mechanical and did not have "ratchets" to prevent spinning backwards. This was definitely the "chicken and egg" era of grid tied solar. Solar was generally dumped on by utilities and there was not enough money to be made to get politicians interested in upsetting the usually deep pocketed utilities. Eventually net metering rules were put in place starting in west coast states and a few other areas like VT and they slowly spread which allowed the early industry to ramp up production and costs to come down. There was a 10% tax credit when I installed my first small array but once the 30% federal credit kicked in solar went mainstream and never looked back although the Koch's are having mixed success in trying to slow it down.
In parallel there was a small professional solar business growing to support telecom and other off grid power needs. The professional side was the province of electrical engineers and expect there was some derision by the pros of the Home Power approach which tended to be "home brew". I worked with a few early pros at Northern Power for a short time in later years and it was obvious they looked at Home Power with mixed feelings. I also ran into several folks in rural Vermont that had experienced the results of "home brew" off grid solar. The conversation usually would touch on "after the fire" or "after the winter of having to lug gas to run the generator until they could afford to replace the batteries". Used gear could usually be found for sale in the local "trader magazines" that existed long before Craig's list as folks either moved onto the grid or just gave up.
In the later years the articles got far less home brew and they started to be far more high end systems designed and installed by pros. There was still DIY in the background but the shift was how to DIY and make it code legal as codes caught up to solar. There also was probably a concern for the liability to the magazine. Solar was going mainstream and I expect in order to get the glossy full page ads they had to go legit.
I personally still read the new issues but definitely was debating if it was worth re-upping my subscription. Given the general demise in print magazines and the shift to free online content I expect the publisher came to the same conclusion that it was time to go. II did get lot out of it over the years and designed and installed my three PV arrays and my Solar Hot Water system from things I learned in the magazine.