>> reporter: henk rogers, another grid defector over on the big island of hawaii, remembers the confusion caused by his decision to cut ties with the utility. >> i had a very interesting phone call and it goes something like this: "is this mr. rogers? yes. this is so and so from the electric company. there seems to be something wrong with our meter." and i said, "no, there's nothing wrong with your meter. i'm just not using any of your electricity." >> reporter: for rogers, energy independence is no hobby. he's spent a chunk of the fortune he amassed licensing the seminal video game tetris experimenting with ways to disconnect his 32-acre ranch from the grid. >> this is the energy lab. >> reporter: an industrial scale array of 360 cutting edge solar panels. >> we have 85 kilowatts peak power, 360 panels on this roof. >> reporter: the latest in energy storage technology. >> so these are the batteries, they're charging now. they are at 91% right now. >> reporter: even an electrolyzer to make use of any extra power his system generates. >> when we're done filling the batteries, then we start