Basically, I can do all of that easier when running a free instance of MSSQL Server, using C# apps to pull data from my inverter exports or the stock market, storing that data into the MSSQL DBs, and running reports either from SELECT queries or C# apps or a combination of both.
So I've more than gotten my money's worth from it. Especially when running stock market scenarios (i.e. what if I had a portfolio spread out across these asset classes and was trying to live in retirement during the 2000-2002 stock crash, or if I had a different portfolio, or it was during the stock rise of the Bush years, or the stock crash of late 2007 to early 2009, etc.) That kind of analysis has helped me have an aggressive portfolio (75% equity mutual funds) so I can try to keep up with inflation, but be spread out enough across many asset classes so that even when I fully retire in a few years and experience market crashes, I'll have a few asset classes that are still up (withdraw from them so I'd be selling high instead of selling low).
Likewise with the solar and EV. Without the data analysis I probably would have spent too much on some parts of the system (fighting the law of diminishing returns) and not enough on other parts (not fully taking advantage of the economies of scale). As it is, in the past 366 days, 80.6% of our power consumed has been from homemade power (either directly from solar or from batteries charged by solar). Only 19.4% of our power had to be pulled from the grid. That's for an all-electric house, and charging an EV to drive it on average 1,200 miles per month (home charged miles, not counting road-side charger miles if we take it on a trip).
Every month when I get a power bill I look at the gas price of the local gas station where I used to buy gas (still do for what little we drive our gas pickup), look at the odometer of the EV, record those and details from the power bill in the DB and an Excel spreadsheet, I download telemetry from my inverters and import that into a table in the DB, then crunch the numbers to see how much gas I saved by not having to by gas for those miles, how much it added to my power demand by having to charge those miles, how much of that was saved by solar, how much the power utility was charging per kWh after subtracting flat monthly fees, how much solar saved me in dollars by the # of kWh I didn't have to buy from the grid, how much natural gas would have cost me if I still had 2 natural gas appliances, how much converting them to electric appliances added to my power demand, how much of that I saved by using solar, how much I'm paying in interest on the loan I took out to buy all of these improvements, how much the YOY inflation rate is on cost per kWh of power and cost per gallon of gasoline, how much my loan payment has gone down because I'm paying down on the balance, how close the energy portion of my budget is to year 2019's energy costs (power bill + natural gas bill + gasoline cost + putting aside $400/month into a car savings account to pay for the next car repairs or car replacement) vs what I'm paying now (small power bill + loan payment + car payment) and how much I would be paying per month if I still had no solar, had gas appliances, and had bought either a new gas car or used gas car (no car payment but lower gas mileage) instead of buying the EV when it was time to replace my wife's gas crossover 2 years ago, etc.
All of that was complex to set up. I did almost all of that a year and a half ago when I had had a small solar system for a year to try it out (call it Phase I) and was deciding on if it was worth upgrading to the full system I have now (Phase II). But now that I have the SQL queries written and C# apps written, it's just a few minutes of my time each month to manually enter a few things into a few records, then run apps to get the telemetry from the inverters and crunch the #'s.
As of my April power bill I've saved a total of $3,300 in my cash flow (call it keeping an extra $3,300 in my Roth IRA's to keep growing tax free) since I began the energy project 3 years ago right after Brandon entered the WH and issued executive orders jacking up our energy costs. Assuming energy costs go up from here at a reasonable 3% inflation rate, and assuming my wife and I keep consuming energy at the same rate (YOY monthly, so I'll assume this June we'll drive the same # of miles and run our home AC as much as we did last June), but our equipment and EV slowly deteriorate as per the warranties of each solar component and the EV, then at around August 2033 will be the point where the loan balance amount will equal the total savings of the energy project. Call that the break even point, and I'll still have a decade left on my solar panel and battery warranties, and EV battery warranty (assuming I will have just replaced the EV's battery on its 10-year anniversary, assuming a 3% inflation rate on what that'd be compared to if I had to replace the battery at today's cost without a warranty). Better still, all of that money I will have saved will have stayed in our Roth IRA's growing tax free for the decade between now and August 2033 (by me not having to spend a lot on energy costs). So instead of my breakeven point being 9 years from now, it's really more like 6 or 7 years from now.
Those are the kind of "games" I play on my laptop. LOL
Good for you! I would remind you however that any project or investment can be justified by tweaking the numbers, the data you choose to input, and/or just ignoring other factors that you don't want to consider.
Although I greatly admire your number crunching prowess, that has very little to do with your computing hardware and everything to do with utilizing the clever grey matter between your ears. I hate to tell you... but all you need to use Microsoft SQL Server is just about any X64 processor and anything over about 2GBs of RAM.
I remember writing programs in Lotus 123’s advanced macro programming language about 40 years ago and running them on an IBM AT compatible computer. Lotus 123 and a vintage computer that could handle most of what you describe fairly efficiently. And it was very easy to program.
“That's for an all-electric house, and charging an EV to drive it on average 1,200 miles per month (home charged miles, not counting road-side charger miles if we take it on a trip).”
EVs have their uses... taking them on a trip is not one of them. You are no doubt aware that if you want to take a trip of more than a few hundred miles and all you have is an EV... you would be better off renting an ICE vehicle about 90% of the time.
Now don't get me wrong... I have put together several electric and gas-powered bicycles and have a capable folding electric bike that we stow in our airplane, so I have taken advantage of vehicles using alternative energy on many occasions. It is just that with rapid depreciation, the limitations, and unpredictable long term battery longevity they are not a good solution for most people's needs.
As a long-term user of lithium based rechargeable batteries I would advise you never to go below 20% of EV's battery capacity and do not leave them charged above 80% unless you plan on using them in the next few days. If you do not follow these guidelines, you will be lucky to get 5 good years out of them let alone 10.
I do appreciate you sharing your insight and accomplishments.