You’ll often see a small house up in the hill above Icelandic farms. These are old home made hydroelectric power plants. Most farms in Iceland are just below a mountain and early in the last century, many farmers harnessed the power in the streams above their farms. This was usually the first time the farms were connected to electricity, so the change was great. Later once powerlines connected most areas with cheap electricity from the large public hydroelectrics, most of these small private ones fell into disrepair. Some are still running and some farmers have large enough generators to sell electricity back into the public grid.
Photo by Adam Witten at the Tiny House Blog.
(Source: emilialua1)
