Yet Another Cool Caterpillar
...and Happy Birthday to our Backup Battery!
Amazing! Just like the week before, last week I saw something completely awesome in nature that made me exclaim (once again), “WOW—that is TOTALLY going to be my Perpetual Journal entry this week!” And just like last week’s post—the subject was a cool caterpillar!
This time I saw a White-lined Sphinx moth larva, happily munching away on one of our new Tufted Evening Primroses!
WOW! Are those colors and patterns on the caterpillar just incredible, and is Mother Nature just The. Best. Artist. Ever?!?!? Yes, and yes!
Like our little larva friend we saw the week before, our latest little larva friend disappeared after a few days. ☹️ It may be buried underneath layers of Primrose leaves, still munching away, or perhaps it explored off-world to pupate (White-lined Sphinx larva pupate underground), or maybe a predator made a meal of it.
🎂 Happy Birthday to our Backup Battery!
Yesterday (October 25) was the 2-year anniversary of the installation of our Powerwall (backup battery for our house). Here’s how our battery works: once our solar panels meet 100% of our current electric needs, additional energy generated by the solar panels is stored in our backup battery. When the battery is 100% full, then the excess energy generated by the solar panels is sent back to the grid, and we get a 💲 credit from our electric company. 🌞 When our solar panels are not generating energy (like at night) we use the energy stored in our Powerwall for our electric needs.
This screenshot from our Powerwall app shows that in the past 2 years, thanks to our solar panels and Powerwall, we’ve been self-powered 88% of the time (53% from the solar panels and 35% from the Powerwall), and only needed to use power from the grid 12% of the time!
Our app estimates this has saved us $3609 USD in the past 2 years. This seems like a conservative estimate to us given that our electric rates have been increasing (and will surely increase in the future!).
In that same time period we’ve had many days and full months during which we’ve been 100% self-powered, as the two screenshots below show (note the “0% Grid”)!
In an interesting bit of timing, we had a 1.5-hour power outage earlier this week, during which our solar panels and Powerwall continued to supply our house with electricity. Yay solar! 🌞
Many Happy Returns is my double birthday wish for your battery. I hope you can hear my applause from Pennsylvania! And, these electric figures are during probably the hottest Tucson summer ever! I love your beautiful, Sphinx caterpillar, too. Hope it reaches moth-hood somewhere in your backyard.