Just wanted everyone to know that I do occasionally do things other than Business Intelligence. During my Christmas vacation this year I installed a small bank of solar panels on my home. This is just a start of a large solar array I plan on finishing later in 2011. This is my way of reducing my energy footprint and raising awareness about the use of alternate energy sources.
Yes I know this is a bad time of year to install solar… short days, snow, etc.. But I wanted to get started and also take advantage of the 30% tax credit in 2010. The solar panels feed a computer that will allow me to track my generation. Later in 2011 the local power company is installing smartmeters so then I will be able to track daily usage. This will then allow me to merge both daily generation and usage and track the results. I know it will be overkill but I will then put in weather data and put it into OLAP and do some trending and forecasting!
For more information you can go to a recently published article in my local newspaper:
My Solar Installation