Green, Eco Friendly Class A Monoblocks

there are some posts on going solar with battery back up for your audio system, never got quite that far myself.

My brother is an electrical engineer, and a damn fine carpenter. He's built the current house he's living in as well as the previous one. In both homes (Vermont where they loose power frequently in the winters) he's built a solar panel system that charges a huge bank of batteries. The system is basically large solar panels on the roof, with a wall-mounted unit that probably has the volume of an average fridge or a bit more(though much flatter) , that is mounted in the basement. If he loses power from the grid, the batteries kick in and will power the house with modest usage for about three days. Battery technology, and capacitor technology has been taking some significant steps over the past decade so everything seems to be getting more compact and efficient. My brother says there are now better ways to go, though is happy with that system in general. Ralphmasphere is a wealth of information on this subject and may be able to give you some advice if you ping him. There are certainly manufacturer's like Red Wine Audio, who are using battery technology to power their components as well. As you know, you need a whole lot of juice for high-current Class A monoblocks, especially if they've got the cojones to push those Magneplanars you have.

Besides lowering the power demand of your amps (e.g. Class D), you may want to look into the solar policies wrt the local power company. In some locations, the power company is required to buy back energy generated by solar, and a simpler solar (or wind) system can be installed that doesn't use battery storage but just pushes power back into the grid. This can sometimes be most cost effective and green. Honestly, if you are building a new house or planning major renovations, you can probably make a whole lot more green impact by going for other energy efficient designs for heating/cooling (e.g. heat pumps, passive solar, solar water heating, efficiency via insulation) than by focusing on your stereo. If you're not willing to do Class D amps, there's not much you can do to reduce the consumption. One advantage of a battery bank, if you're going to spend the money, is that you might be able to have your equipment modified to run directly from the battery banks (i.e. no AC noise). As Marco mentioned above, Ralph at Atmosphere would have some good ideas in that area.