Living Energy Farm

Living Energy Farm, or "LEF", is an intentional community of eight adult members and four children (as of 2024) on 127 acres in rural Louisa County, Virginia, United States.

As an environmental education center, LEF's mission is to demonstrate a way of life that is both sustainable and accessible to the majority of humanity that is not wealthy.

In addition to its pioneering work on DC energy systems, LEF employs many other "green" technologies such as strawbale insulation, passive and active solar heating, and biogas production for cooking fuel and farm tractors.

[2] The DC Microgrid developed at LEF uses direct/ daylight drive (wiring DC motors and other appliances directly to PV panels), thermal storage, and insulation to provide off-grid domestic energy services at low cost by avoiding the use of batteries and inverters for heavy energy loads such as refrigeration, cooking, heating and cooling, and motors.

LEF works to promote and establish daylight drive DC Microgrids in low income communities where grid power is inaccessible or unreliable.