If you could track the proliferation of self-powered homes back to one grassroots seed it would undoubtedly be Home Power magazine – the Bible for do-it-yourselfers committed to producing homegrown energy from solar, wind, and small-scale hydropower, and retrofitting their homes with efficiency measures. Read by off-gridders and city-dwellers alike, the magazine has been around for nearly two decades – since 1987 – and can safely be called a trend-setter.

Homepower is produced in the mountains of Southern Oregon by a team of off-beat, exuberant and incredibly devoted energy nerds (I've met them), most of whom live off-grid, drive biodiesel cars, and walk the walk as well as they talk the talk. Their technical expertise in everything from inverters and water pumps to biofuels and plug-in hybrids makes the tech-savvy writers of Wired and Popular Science look like lightweights. Granted, the technical jargon may be too heavy for your average homeowner, but as energy prices soar, so does demand (and patience) for this kind of technical know-how.

Photo credit: Home Power