The energy story · 8 posts
Own The Peak
Electrifying a 1990s brick-veneer house, filling the roof with solar, adding a battery, and finding the value was in the data and the control logic.
- Part 1 · 7 min read
I Electrified My House. Then I Discovered What the Data Was Hiding.
Sixty-two per cent of five months of export earnings came from 205 half-hours. The value was never in the panels; it was in the data and the logic.
- Part 2 · 12 min read
The Feed-in Tariff, Properly
What a wholesale feed-in tariff actually pays, why spike capture is the whole game, and how the plan compared with the alternatives over 130 days.
- Part 3 · 9 min read
Your Battery Is a Peaker Plant — If You Operate It Like One
A home battery on wholesale pricing earns its keep the way a peaker plant does: by dispatching at the right moment, against an objective with a sense of order.
- Part 4 · 8 min read
The Data Layer, And Why I Don't Trust A Number Until It Matches A Bill
Why every number in this series reconciles to four invoices, to the cent, and the sign, timezone and settlement traps on the way there.
- Part 5 · 6 min read
The Forecast Wasn't Lying — I Was Throttling The Inverter
The solar forecast looked badly wrong on cloudy days. It was not; the comparison was. Compare the forecast with potential output, not measured output.
- Part 6 · 8 min read
The Automation Stack (and the Sunday it cost me fifty cents)
Two stacks of rules, a heat-pump race condition, and the restart that exported 8.7 kWh into a negative price one Sunday.
- Part 7 · 8 min read
The Economics: Show Your Receipts
$157.47 earned over four billing periods, reconciled to the cent, and why "how much did you earn" is the wrong question.
- Part 8 · 8 min read
What I'm Doing Next — Five Months In, Winter Coming
A stocktake five months in: what surprised me, what I would do differently, and what comes next before winter.