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WE Cruise the Rhine

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In celebration of a significant number of decades of wedded bliss, we did a river cruise on the Rhine, courtesy Ama Waterways. The Route I've drawn this by hand, so our actual distance covered was likely more, over 800km. The plan She has consented to do carry-on only luggage, as we have a couple of multi-hour periods where a big bag would be painful to deal with. We reached a good agreement on what is really essential travel stuff. Itinerary Monday May 12th to Montreal, then overnight to Amsterdam arriving May 13. No one had announced direct flight when we booked all this. Stay in Amsterdam at the Rho Hotel See the sites in Amsterdam until we board our boat the AmaPrima on May 14. May 15, we stay docked the first night, and go on a canal tour in Amsterdam in the morning May 16, we dock at Dusseldorf walking tour of Dussledorf walking tour of Cologne May 17, we dock at Rudesheim bike tour of the Rheingau Siegfried's Mechanical Music cabinet May 18, we dock at Ludwigshafen (Mann...
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Record production

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 Beautiful cold, sunny day. Our solar power array was maxed out four hours, and productive for nine. Looking forward to the days getting longer.
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Nerd alert: heat pumps vs. oil-fired hydronic baseboards analysis

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We are heading for a cold snap this week, with a low of -15C forecast for Tuesday. What temperature does it make sense to turn up the thermostat so the oil-fired heat takes over from labouring heat pumps? Well, I'm glad you asked! I looked at our oil consumption for 5 years before we installed heat pumps. In the non-heating summer season, we used oil to heat just domestic hot water, to the tune of about 2.8 liters per day. We used a measurable amount of oil annually, so taking 2.8 * 365 from that total gives the annual oil consumption for heating only. The annual heating degree day total here is 3600, meaning that the daily outside temperature is, on average, 3600/365 (i.e. 10) degrees lower than our desired home interior temperature. My outside temperature sensor agrees, maybe a bit warmer. Oil is 10.7 KWh per liter, so (mutter, mutter) heating our house with oil consumes 4.48 KWh per heating degree day, or 186 watts per degree difference between inside and outside. I'm measur...
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Significant production

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I've spent 'way too much time on it, but finally have data populating the Energy dashboard in Home Assistant. It's showing a decent story: This is mid-January, when sunset  is a mere 9.5 hours after sunrise, the sun is low in the sky, and we're using a bunch of electricity to run our heating system. Even so, when the clouds get out of the way, we're generating 30% of the electricity we're using. The heat pumps are consuming 75% of that generation.  When days get longer and it warms up, we should be generating a big surplus. Can I sell it to the neighbours? Spin up a giant flywheel in the backyard? Of course, this was a rare sunny day. The panels have been producing for a month now. Half   the production we've accumulated was on five days.
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Almost a PV catastrophe

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 We recently has PV solar panels installed on the roof.The day we turned them on was cloudy, and they produced almost nothing. 18 cents worth of electricity. The next day was very sunny and resulted in about 75% of their designed power production midday and about $6 worth of energy, which is very good for a short day in December.  Then we had two good sized snowstorms just before Christmas, and the resulting accumulation on the panels shut down production to almost nothing. Here's the week centred on Christmas Day.  So what happened on December 27th to restore production? Mid-morning, the sun and warmth was finally uncovering the panels from their snowy blanket. In the late morning after taking this picture, while I was checking the oil prior to our road trip, an angel came to me in a dream and suggested moving the car back from the house.  Just before 2:00PM, while doomscrolling on the couch,  I heard a loud rumble and felt the house shake a bit. Going outside,...
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