Generator use
From Jan 1, 2025 to Dec 31, 2025 the generator ran for 1531 hours. With an average fuel consumption of 4L/hr, a total of 6124L of diesel fuel were burned in 2025. Besides the cost of purchasing and delivering this amount of fuel, there is the carbon footprint to consider. Using a Google AI derived average of 2.6 kg of C02 produced per L of diesel burned, a total of 16 TONS of C02 were produced in 2025, not to mention the particulate matter, volatile organic compounds or nitrous oxides generated from burning the diesel. This sure makes a good case for replacing the old solar panels with more efficient ones and using faster charging Lithium batteries to reduce generator run time.
From the data I was able to download from 2023 to 2025 I produced a few charts and tables. We can see some irregular events like the high generator use in Jan 2024 and the higher use in the fall of of 2025 possibly from the increased use of the Student House (Figure 1).
Figure 1. Energy (kWh) produced by the generator each month from 2023 to 2025.
In terms of solar production we can see the great benefit derived from replacing the faulty connectors on the solar panels on June 11 2025 (Figure 2 and see the post from 18 | June | 2025 | Race Rocks Ecological Reserve-)
Figure 2. Energy (kWh) produced from solar each month from 2023 to 2025.
There is, as expected, a marked seasonal variation in generator use (Figure 3 and Table 1). On average throughout the year, we are getting 60% of our energy from the generator and 40% from solar. In an ideal world we would flip this ratio or even better, rely mainly on solar energy. This brings me to why I took this deep dive into the data. The notice from OpticsRE software package that the online data archives available for download were soon being reduced to 6 months (which prompted me to download all historical data) coincided with a request from Seafront to calculate average fuel consumption. Today we had an off-grid energy specialist visit Race Rocks. Hopefully a more efficient, green energy power system is in our future!
Figure 3. Relative distribution of power from the generator and from solar for each month, using data from 2023 to 2025.
Table 1. Average monthly kWh produced by the generator and from solar, using data from 2023 to 2025.
Wildlife notes
No remarkable events to report. The female elephant seal moved another 20m today.
Facility work
- transferring diesel to the generator building and filling fuel tanks
- joining Greg, Richard and the energy specialist on a power system inspection
- downloading and formatting data, producing pivot tables and charts
Vessels
- Ecotourism: 0
- Private: 2 people on jet skis
Weather
Skies overcast. Winds light and variable. Glassy seas and fog by late afternoon. Daytime temperature 10 degrees.