Powerful mission accomplished

Yesterday, my solar power system was switched on and generated electricity for the first time. It wasn’t an ideal day—there were heavy clouds for part of it, and electricity generation plummeted when that happened (though it still made power, of course). The main thing for me was what I said when I shared the news on my personal Facebook: “Mission accomplished, Nigel.”

When the solar panels were installed a couple weeks ago, I talked about all the reasons I was getting solar power installed, and I mentioned that Nigel dreamed of us generating our own electricity. I said:

…One of the biggest things for me is that I’ll be at least near self-sufficiency in electricity generation, which had been Nigel’s dream. I couldn’t do it the way he wanted, but I’m trying to do it in a way that’s right for me. He’d approve.

He definitely would approve, something I know because our values aligned so very much. And, it makes me happy, and that, too, would make him happy.

This happened because the inspector showed up yesterday and switched the system on (partly so he could inspect it when it was on). He said they’re way behind in inspections because they have so many to do, partly because of all the new residential construction, and also because of the number of solar systems being installed. Harrisons are also flat out installing PV solar systems, too. I hope I’ll be able to get some data on that at some point, but I like that even anecdotally more people are turning to generating their own electricity.

I planned on doing laundry and running the dishwasher today, but it was a mostly cloudy day, so I skipped the dishwasher (which was a very wise choice). Doing the laundry used much less power than normal, maybe even none at some points, and it was a higher priority.

It’ll be months before I have a clear sense of how it’s going, how it’s affecting my power bills. I’ll be keeping track of it all on a spreadsheet, so I definitely plan on talking about that in more detail later on.

For now, though, there was one other thing that made me happy: April 22 is Earth Day, and my solar power system went live on Earth Day. I like that. Mainly, though, what’s personally important to me is that I achieved something to put my values into action, and that, in my own way, I fulfilled one of Nigel’s dreams.

Mission accomplished, Nigel.