Planning photovoltaic systems isn't easy, even with a specialist at hand. The author spent time collecting consumption data to find cost efficiency in their home's electricity usage. They used TimescaleDB, Node-RED, Grafana, a Raspberry Pi, and an open-source software combination to collect data from the power meter and plan their photovoltaic system. The author aimed to create a baseline of energy consumption per day, hour, weekday, and month. With this information, they can make educated decisions about battery capacity and optimize their solar panel system. The setup was designed as a temporary workaround but made it easy to set up and run the time-series database 24/7. The author encourages readers to try TimescaleDB for free with no credit card required.