Last year a posted my thoughts on roundism – our obsession with round numbers: special birthdays, wedding anniversaries and the like. So I thought, “When the meter that records the cumulative output of our solar panels reaches 25,000, I’ll photograph it and put up another post.”

But I missed it. I estimated when the meter would hit 25,000 and then I forgot to go to the garage with my camera.  So I thought, “I know, I’ll wait for 25,252 and do a post about our obsession with patterns and palindromes – and put in a plug for solar power.”  And this time I didn’t forget!

Our 3 kW array of photovoltaic cells was installed on my late mother’s 100th birthday, so I can’t forget the date and I know we’ve been harvesting the sun’s energy for 1,301 days.  That means we’ve averaged 19.4 kWh per day, earning/saving us close to A$6 per day.  That’s like having over A$90,000 invested in 20-year US treasury bills.  And the system cost us only A$6,800, so that’s pretty good.