I’ve been slacking on the energy updates. I love my new energy monitor, but it broke my database update scripts and I haven’t had time to fix them. In the mean time I thought I’d share some high level updates.

1. Transition from eMonitor to eGauge data begins March 8. Missing data for about 4 hours.
2014 Usage Solar PV Net usage or (surplus) Avg. daily usage HDD
Total 4,983 4,318 665 27.5 6,583
Jan 1103 472 631 35.6 1,380
Feb 994 511 483 35.5 1,174
Mar 1 1060 743 317 34.2 1,170
Apr 751 889 (138) 25.0 550
May 662 834 (171) 21.4 231
Jun 413 869 (456) 13.8 64

As you can see we’re still not energy positive for the year, we still owe the utility 665 kWh to even up the score. At the rate we’re going we may not surpass usage until August.

Many things contribute to the usage spike; a very cold January through March, charging the plugin hybrid, and assorted incubators and heat lamps that were used to keep our 70+ flock of baby chicks and 5 baby goats warm in the cold winter temperatures. The heat lamps alone were pulling 500 watts day and night through the colder temperatures.

Hopefully I’ll have some time to fix my scripts and get the data back online in a more timely fashion.

Until then, I’ll be renovating the old goat hut to be a secondary chicken coop, and finishing the first coop I started last summer. Plus we have to get ready for the open house in October which is only 3 months away!

At least I have helpers.

Goats eating grass
Goats eating grass