The main takeaway should be that being that far north is not a show stopper for going off grid with mostly solar, a bit of wind, and batteries in a very harsh climate with limited sun hours in the winter. Anything further south is probably a lot more effective and cheaper to run. But the point of the article is that people are doing this and are saving money doing it. Of course, that is indeed enabled by a monopolist really encouraging this by discouraging new customers with unreasonable fees. But that's the other point, being at the mercy of companies like that is not great financially and there's a point where it becomes simply not worth the money in.