It finally happened.
We had a couple of very dark days (with about ½” of rain, which was good) that weren’t accurately predicted by any of the weather forecasts I consulted. I did two loads of laundry the first morning, using 7-8 kWh of electricity (almost entirely for the electric dryer), then the sun went away for the rest of the two days.
Even without charging the car at all, and skipping a night in the hot tub, we had to run the generator to be sure we’d get through the night and have energy for coffee in the morning.
With an accurate weather prediction, I could have delayed the laundry (or line-dried the clothes) and we might not have needed to burn the fossil fuels.
Today’s weather forecast called for sun in the morning, then clouds in the afternoon. The morning sun didn’t materialize and I thought we were doomed to a second day on the generator, but the sun blazed through in the early afternoon and now we’re sitting pretty with 82% capacity on the house batteries even after adding 6% to the car charge.
—2p