When your neighborhood runs on sunshine and batteries— and the odd temperamental diesel genset — “energy” stops being an invoice and becomes your lifestyle.

In this wide-ranging chat, renewables expert-electrician Anne Wilson takes us from the mud-brick beginnings of her off-grid home to the cutting-edge software that now powers commercial design desks worldwide. Anne explains how life in Victoria’s Moora Moora intentional community (36 households, zero grid connection) sharpened her approach to system sizing, load profiling and big-battery safety; why she now splits her week between training users on Solar Plus and wiring experiments at Glen Morris’s Smart Energy Lab.

Along the way we dig into:

• lead-acid nostalgia vs. lithium reality
• keeping clients honest about hair-dryers, cool-rooms and sneaky loads unaccounted for
• generator gremlins, frequency droop and biodiesel dreams
• battery warranties, FCAS/arbitrage math and three hours of free power in NZ
• building careers (and Flemish-bond houses) as a woman on the tools — including an all-female 100 kW installation
  
  
  

Whether you’re a rooftop rookie, a software geek or a hardened off-grid veteran, Anne’s mix of pragmatism, humor and hard-won lessons will leave you itching to grab a multimeter… or at least read the manual first.