Powering up cheaply

Power doesn't corrupt people, people corrupt power.

- William Gaddis -

I'm fortunate to have been born in a country considered first-world and have enjoyed a very happy life here so far; what I have hasn't come easily though, I work hard for everything, however still feel very grateful for the opportunities that exist, those I've created and those I'm working on currently.

In my adult life I've not taken things for granted because my parents struggled financially which taught me valuable lessons around intelligent and responsible spending, making what I have last and prioritising needs over wants; sure, I've also made want-purchases but not at the expense of something more important that I need.

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Power needs

Basic amenities and utilities are constant here in Australia and we don't experience many power outages and we don't have rolling grid shut-downs/load-shedding to make the electricity we produce go further.

I know countries like South Africa struggle to make their ailing power network meet demand; here though, when we want power we have it unless there's a major storm or catastrophic event that sometimes damages power grid infrastructure and that's only very rarely. That doesn't mean I like to waste power though, a habit I learned from my parents, and with that in mind I decided to install solar systems to my houses with the first going in around October 2016.

Each year I review against the last via the Enphase reporting system more out of curiosity than need and have been pleased to see a fairly consistent result year on year. Below are the years 2024, 2023 and 2022 and another graph showing the lifetime of the system for one of my properties. You'll see reports on what power that house has imported from the grid and what the solar system produced plus what was exported to the grid (I get paid for that) and a net export figure plus the total consumed.

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Interestingly the grid dependence percentage has dropped in 2024 meaning the household is more self-reliant and indicates that certain changes I made have had a huge effect. Of course, this is a high level report without much detail but it demonstrates the effectiveness of the solar system; t tells me what's going on at a glance and when I want to drill down I can do so all the way to individual days of the week which helps me investigate why less power was produced - rainy or overcast days mainly and once there was a fault.

Below is the lifetime overview and I think it's interesting to see the orange energy consumed bars dramatically lessen in 2021 which shows a dramatic change in use of that property and lower energy usage; note the currency equivalent which shows (approximately) the dollar value of what's been produced - not too shabby huh?

_{Lifetime (Oct 2016-present)}

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I put my solar arrays on my properties to save money and I've definitely saved a pile of cash.

I could have saved more by installing a storage battery in each as well however due to cost I have not; I knew I'd not own the properties for long enough to recoup the expense. I've made sure the systems are battery-ready though which is going to be a selling point down the track although won't gain me more in sale price probably but may make it a more attractive prospect for the eventual buyer. Right now though, I'm really happy with how things are travelling and am glad I went tot he expense to get the systems on.