https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/08/strathcona-power-aug-2026.html<p>The retailing business continues to grow, up 10 sites to a total of 138. I scaled back my previous online marketing campgin, as it wasn’t turning into sales, and launched a replacement. For my first 10 kW tranche of generation, my loan has fallen apart, and in one of the most frustrating ways&nbsp;possible.</p><article morss_own_score="6.648272768057425" morss_score="24.983907096415635"> <img src="https://blog.minchin.ca/images/2026/strathcona-power-v2.4-detailed.svg"> <h1> <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/08/strathcona-power-aug-2026.html" title="Permalink to Building Strathcona Power — August 2026"> Building Strathcona Power — August 2026 </a> </h1> <div class="entry-content" morss_own_score="5.871268656716418" morss_score="105.6242356030796"> <p>To recap, I’m building up a boutique energy retailer (<a href="https://strathconapower.ca">Strathcona Power</a>), to be your local, human option for power and natural gas.</p> <p>This is a follow-up to <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/07/strathcona-power-july-2026.html">July’s status update</a>.</p> <h2>Pricing Update</h2> <p>This section is general notes on electricity and natural gas pricing in Alberta, looking back at July and forward to August.</p> <p>The floating price for electricity is bouncing off of the lowest price in a decade. So it’s up from last month, but still incredibly affordable at ~4.1 ¢/kWh. Floating natural gas is low as well, and slightly lower than last month, and ~$1.50/<span>GJ</span> below fixed prices. In short, I remain a fan of both and hope you are signed up on floating rates.</p> <p>Fixed prices are relatively low, but seem to have started to raise, especially seen in the 5 year electricity rate. That said, although the 5 year rate is up more than 1 ¢/kWh over the last 3 months, it’s only back to where it was at the beginning of the year. I suspect (longer term) prices will keep raising, so if you want to lock in, now would probably be a good time. Natural gas, by contrast, has been effectively flat since the start of the year, and is still ~$1/<span>GJ</span> below it’s peak last May.</p> <p>Our pricing for August:</p> <table> <thead> <tr> <th>Term</th> <th>Electricity</th> <th>Trend</th> <th>Natural Gas</th> <th>Trend</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>Floating^{<a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/08/strathcona-power-aug-2026.html#fn:2026080401">1</a>}</td> <td>~4.1 ¢/kWh</td> <td>~$2.46/<span>GJ</span></td> </tr> <tr> <td>1 year Fixed</td> <td>6.99 ¢/kWh</td> <td>$3.79/<span>GJ</span></td> </tr> <tr> <td>2 year Fixed</td> <td>7.49 ¢/kWh</td> <td>$3.89/<span>GJ</span></td> </tr> <tr> <td>3 year Fixed</td> <td>8.59 ¢/kWh</td> <td>$3.89/<span>GJ</span></td> </tr> <tr> <td>5 year Fixed</td> <td>9.89 ¢/kWh</td> <td>$3.99/<span>GJ</span></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <h2>Retailing Progress</h2> <p>The retailing business continues to grow, up 10 sites to a total of 138. I scaled back my previous online marketing campaign, as it wasn’t turning into sales, and launched a replacement. This second one is more aggressive (in that I’m spending more on it). It’s only been live for a couple of days, but I have high hopes of it bringing in sales in volume. I suspect much of my coming time will be spend on the phone following up with incoming leads. This is perhaps the only downside of this replacement campaign: it’s going to require a lot more hands-on action to maintain from my side.</p> <h2>Generation Progress</h2> <p>A secondary line of the business I’ve been focused on is building my own generation capacity, to compliment the retail sales.</p> <p>For my first 10 kW of generation, my loan has fallen apart, and in one of the most frustrating ways possible. In short, it was a municipal loan program that defined a number of pre-approved projects, but I was working under their “other projects” category. To qualify, I needed to establish that the generators were “renewable energy”; after much back and forth over definitions, they agreed to use the same definition that the Alberta electrical grid does; the provided the following email instructions:</p> <blockquote morss_own_score="3.0" morss_score="21.0"> <p>Hi Will,</p> <p>Thanks for taking my call this morning. […]</p> <p>For the unit to be eligible for [the loan program], using the renewable energy pathway, the unit needs to meet the definition of ‘renewable energy’ from the micro-generation regulation. I re-reviewed the definition of renewable energy in the micro-generation regulation, which states the following:</p> <blockquote> <p><em>“renewable or alternative energy” means electric energy generated from</em></p> <p><em>(i) products having current EcoLogo certification, or</em><br> <em>(ii) solar, wind, hydro, fuel cell, geothermal, biomass or other generation sources, if the greenhouse gas intensity of</em></p> <p>    <em>(A) the electric energy produced, or</em><br>     <em>(B) the total energy produced from the simultaneous generation of electric energy and production of thermal energy from the same fuel source</em></p> <p><em>is less than or equal to 418 kg per MWh;</em></p> </blockquote> <p>[…]</p> <p>Let me know if you would like to set up a call to discuss further, or if you would like me to speak with the engineer who provided the letter to confirm the requirements.</p> <p>Thanks,</p> <p>[signed, the Program Director]</p> </blockquote> <p>In my opinion, the generators are operating within the electricity market, and so this seems like the appropriate “industry standard” definition. I also like this definition because it allows you to consider technologies or techniques (or a combination thereof) that might not have existing when the legislation was written that still meet its goals.</p> <p>As requested, I paid an engineer to write a letter confirmed that generator met the requirements as outline, and submitted it, and thought I was finally figured out and I just had to wait for their process to complete: they had given me a criteria, in writing, I had shown how I met it.</p> <p>And I was met with under disappointment. About three weeks later, I received this follow up email:</p> <blockquote morss_own_score="3.0" morss_score="24.5"> <p>Hello William,</p> <p>Thank you for your patience as we reviewed this matter with the City […].</p> <p>In consultation with the City, we have confirmed that the proposed <span>CHP</span> upgrade does not meet the definition of renewable energy.</p> <p>I understand that in previous conversations, we had spoken about the definition of ‘renewable energy’ as outlined in the Micro-generation Regulation. As [the loan program] is not governed by this regulation, however, and ‘renewable energy’ is not defined in […] the pieces of legislation that govern [the loan program], the program is using the industry standard definition of renewable energy to determine eligibility; i.e., energy generated from natural resources that naturally replenish faster than they are consumed (e.g., sunlight, wind, water, geothermal heat).</p> <p>As the <span>CHP</span> unit you have applied to finance doesn’t increase energy efficiency on the property [<em>ed. note: the other possible qualifying criteria</em>] and does not meet the definition of renewable energy, unfortunately, it is not eligible to be financed through the program.</p> <p>If there is another upgrade that you would like to finance through the program, to meet the Edmonton requirement of three upgrades, please let us know.</p> <p>Sincerely,</p> <p>[signed, the Program Director]</p> </blockquote> <p>My issue here is not that they have a definition (although this is only the second time they’ve been able to provide a definition at all), and thus some projects fall within their mandate and other don’t. No, my issue is that they seem to be redefining the terms of the loan on the fly to disallow my project. In an earlier phone call, I had pointed out the generator technology (combined heat and power) had been explicitly listed on their website on a page entitled “Renewable Energy, Solar <span>PV</span> <span>&amp;</span> Thermal” with the declaration “You can upgrade”, they brushed it off as a “mere” “marketing mistake”. The difference, however, is that the website is not only a “marketing” website, but also the (legal) list of eligible upgrades.</p> <p>When I called them out, both the website reference and the changing definitions in a response email, pointing out that “I expected you to be good for your word; your conduct here has proven disingenuous.”, they resorted to claiming I had hacked their website with <span>AI</span>^{<a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/08/strathcona-power-aug-2026.html#fn:2026080402">2</a>}:</p> <blockquote> <p>Re: the information on the website, what you reference is not from the current [loan program] website. After you referenced this same statement in conversations with a colleague, we had our communications team investigate and it appears that this statement was from a draft page on the website that was never published. I assume you may have used <span>AI</span> to find the information, and it somehow accessed the unpublished page; this has now been deleted entirely to avoid any future confusion. Publicly available program information has not ever mentioned that combined heat and power upgrades were eligible.</p> </blockquote> <p>There seems to be a pattern here that they will change the definitions on the fly (sometimes inside a phone call, sometimes within an email chain) to get the result they want, without accepting any responsibility of either their words or the results of their actions.</p> <p>I’m not sure what they want me to do here — just fade away, and pretend their program was all a bad dream? But I’m out thousands of dollars in professional services that were only done to meet the requirements of this loan program (including the engineering letter they explicitly requested to show that I qualified), I’m out thousands of dollars in interest on the generator while I’ve delayed installation (again to meet the program requirements), and further I’ve lost out on ~6 months of operating income from the unit. And that is to say nothing of the hundreds of hours I’ve put into this.</p> <p>I put this story here not because I expect any of you (my readers) have a “big stick” that would get my loan application through (although that is a nice enough dream), but to give an example of the vagaries one deals with as a business owner. The program was clear enough, and anything not clear I talked to them early about to (try and) clarify, and now, after tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours over 10 months, the project just falls apart. And this isn’t the first time that a government program or announcement has completely turned my business upside down. The deepest cut isn’t the money, although that stings, but the “opportunity cost”: What could I have built instead over the last year? If they had no intention of funding this, I wish they would have told me the first time when I called in October.</p> <p><strong>Update, immediately prior to publication</strong>: the Program Director’s boss called this afternoon to say they are still reviewing the situation, and hope to get back to me in a week to ten days. Perhaps the loan’s not dead after all. I take it as a positive sign that they called me (rather than me having to call them), and am very cautiously optimistic….</p> <p>I have the (physical) install scheduled for the 24th of this month, although it may take several visits to get it live and running; I’m expecting it to take another two or three months to see money start hitting my account.</p> <p>For the second tranche (of ~70 kW of generation), they aren’t going ahead without the loan program, at least in their initially proposed form. I’m also (frustratingly) waiting on the interconnect agreements for these.</p> <p>The third tranche of larger sites (hosting 35 to 150 kW of generation per site) is showing slow progress. I have a confirmed site for a 35kW generator, and am still working on the (property) loan for it; I’m told that our financial position is strong but that building’s “mixed use” status (having both retail space and apartments) is providing complications in getting the loan approved at the bank. I expect we’ll know by the end of the month, one way or another, if there is funding for the property. The connection agreement here is taking longer to come together as well, so I suspect we will have to buy the property first, and then place the generator a little later. I’m still optimistic, as all the pieces are still moving forward.</p> <h2>Current <span>KPI</span>’s</h2> <table> <thead> <tr> <th><span>KPI</span></th> <th>Status</th> <th>Trend</th> <th>Target Date</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>Site Count</td> <td>138 / 420</td> <td>end of January 2027</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Generation Online</td> <td>0 / 50 kW</td> </tr> <tr> <td>~$6.9k / $100k</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p>Site count growth is holding steady, although the next 6 or so months are going to be demanding. I’ve made my first site count target (of 120 sites by the end of July), so my focus has shifted is on the next target (of 420 sites by the end of next January). This demands ~5x as many site on-boarded each month compared to the historical baseline.</p> <p><span>ARR</span> remains low (though the gross is growing) because on the generation side I’m paying interest on upfront installation costs, but it isn’t generated any income yet. I’ve also started to see some advertising costs, further bringing the net income down. Finally, I’ve excluded some one-off items that happened this month.</p> <h2>Review of Last Month’s Plans</h2> <ul> <li>resolve <strong>first tranche generation loan paperwork issue</strong> — functionally decided, but not the way I wanted it to go</li> <li>launch my <strong>second marketing campaign</strong> — launched; no sales yet</li> <li><strong>secure financing for my first third tranche site</strong> — still in-progress</li> </ul> <h2>Plans for the Coming Month</h2> <ul> <li>get my <strong>first tranche generator (physically) installed</strong></li> <li><strong>get some traction from my marketing campaign</strong></li> <li>continue with <strong>securing financing for my first third tranche site</strong>, ideally for both the site itself and the generator.</li> </ul> <h2>How You Can Help</h2> <p>I’m grateful for your help in growing the <a href="https://strathconapower.ca">Strathcona Power</a>. If you live in Alberta, please <a href="https://strathconapower.ca/signup">sign up</a> for electricity and natural gas, or send me your bill (to <a href="mailto:william@strathconapower.ca">William@StrathconaPower.ca</a>) and I can run a bill comparison. But to spoil the surprise, you want to be on our floating rates! If you’ve already signed up, tell a friend!</p> <p>Till next month,</p> <p> — William, <em>El Presidente</em> of Strathcona Power</p> <hr> <ol> <li> <p>This is approximate July retail pricing. Floating prices can and do change month to month, and vary slightly between wire areas. <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/08/strathcona-power-aug-2026.html#fnref:2026080401" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p> </li> <li> <p>this “use” of <span>AI</span> — claiming your counterparty invented your words wholesale as a way to pretend you didn’t write them — is an interesting “use case” for <span>AI</span> that I haven’t seen referenced before. I wonder how common this will become as a retort by public bodies trying to deny citizen’s claims.</p> <p>I found the page using the site search they had linked at the top of the site, no <span>AI</span> involved (at least from my side). <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/08/strathcona-power-aug-2026.html#fnref:2026080402" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text">↩</a></p> </li> <li> <p><em>Annualized Recurring Revenue</em>. Basically an assumption of annual revenue, based on last month’s topline income less last month’s regular costs (i.e. ignoring one-off costs). This combines both the retailing and the generation arms of the Company. <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/08/strathcona-power-aug-2026.html#fnref:2026080403" title="Jump back to footnote 3 in the text">↩</a></p> </li> </ol> </div> <hr> <p>Other posts</p> <hr> <p>Other posts under <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/category/strathcona-power/">Strathcona Power</a></p> <hr> <p><a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/archives/">Click to see every post in a big list</a></p> <hr> </article> Tue, 04 Aug 2026 16:27:55 https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/07/strathcona-power-july-2026.html <p>The retailing business is growing slightly more quickly, up 17 sites to a total of 128. I&#8217;ve expanded co-marketting efforts, which have born fruit, and I&#8217;m pretty excited to see what they will bring in over the summer and&nbsp;onward.</p> <p>I&#8217;ve worked to get my own online marketing campaign, but it has yet to show <em>any</em> sales. This is super frustrating; I&#8217;ve reached out to an advisor to improve&nbsp;this.</p> <article morss_own_score="6.108354011579818" morss_score="24.356729462843354"> <img src="https://blog.minchin.ca/images/2026/strathcona-power-v2.4-detailed.svg"> <h1> <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/07/strathcona-power-july-2026.html" title="Permalink to Building Strathcona Power — July 2026"> Building Strathcona Power — July 2026 </a> </h1> <div class="entry-content" morss_own_score="5.696750902527075" morss_score="81.2291361276043"> <p>To recap, I’m building up a boutique energy retailer (<a href="https://strathconapower.ca">Strathcona Power</a>), to be your local, human options for power and natural gas.</p> <p>This is a follow-up to <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/05/strathcona-power-apr-2026.html">April’s status update</a>. June was busy enough that I missed that update/included the highlights here.</p> <h2>Pricing Update</h2> <p>This section is general notes on electricity and natural gas pricing in Alberta, looking back at May and June and forward to July.</p> <p>The floating price for electricity came in at the lowest its been in a decade, continuing its currently low streak. Floating natural gas is low as well, more than a dollar below available fixed prices. In short, I’m a fan of both and hope you are signed up on them.</p> <p>Fixed prices are relatively low, but seem to have (temporarily?) stopped dropping. We’re starting to see data centers announced^{<a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/07/strathcona-power-july-2026.html#fn:2026070801">1</a>} with more promised, and so this is pointed to for a reason that longer terms for power and gas are higher. If you want to sign up for a fixed gas price for next winter, this might be a good time to do so. For electricity, during the last cycle, 5 year fixed rates bottomed out at ~6 1/2 ¢/kWh by comparision.</p> <p>Our pricing for July:</p> <table> <thead> <tr> <th>Term</th> <th>Electricity</th> <th>Trend</th> <th>Natural Gas</th> <th>Trend</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>Floating^{<a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/07/strathcona-power-july-2026.html#fn:2026070802">2</a>}</td> <td>~2.7 ¢/kWh</td> <td>~$2.65/<span>GJ</span></td> </tr> <tr> <td>1 year Fixed</td> <td>6.99 ¢/kWh</td> <td>$3.69/<span>GJ</span></td> </tr> <tr> <td>2 year Fixed</td> <td>7.39 ¢/kWh</td> <td>$3.89/<span>GJ</span></td> </tr> <tr> <td>3 year Fixed</td> <td>8.19 ¢/kWh</td> <td>$3.89/<span>GJ</span></td> </tr> <tr> <td>5 year Fixed</td> <td>9.39 ¢/kWh</td> <td>$3.89/<span>GJ</span></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p>Our pricing for June:</p> <table> <thead> <tr> <th>Term</th> <th>Electricity</th> <th>Trend</th> <th>Natural Gas</th> <th>Trend</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>Floating^{<a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/07/strathcona-power-july-2026.html#fn:2026070803">3</a>}</td> <td>~4.4 ¢/kWh</td> <td>~$2.00/<span>GJ</span></td> </tr> <tr> <td>1 year Fixed</td> <td>6.99 ¢/kWh</td> <td>$3.69/<span>GJ</span></td> </tr> <tr> <td>2 year Fixed</td> <td>7.39 ¢/kWh</td> <td>$3.79/<span>GJ</span></td> </tr> <tr> <td>3 year Fixed</td> <td>7.99 ¢/kWh</td> <td>$3.89/<span>GJ</span></td> </tr> <tr> <td>5 year Fixed</td> <td>8.99 ¢/kWh</td> <td>$3.95/<span>GJ</span></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <h2>Retailing Progress</h2> <p>The retailing business is growing slightly more quickly, up 17 sites to a total of 128. I’ve expanded co-marketting efforts, which have born fruit, and I’m pretty excited to see what they will bring in over the summer and onward.</p> <p>I’ve worked to get my own online marketing campaign, but it has yet to show <em>any</em> sales. This is super frustrating; I’ve reached out to an advisor to improve this.</p> <h2>Generation Progress</h2> <p>A secondary line of the business I’ve been focused on is building my own generation capacity, to compliment the retail sales.</p> <p>For my first 10 kW of generation, I has originally hoping to have it installed over three month ago (i.e. when the ground un-froze). Instead, the loan has come back with a request for yet additional paperwork; that said, they’ve finally provided a written criteria that I can meet to quality, and I’ve sent them a letter to show I meet their criteria. Now the question is how long they will take to process that…it’s been a week with no communication from them so far (no news is good news??).</p> <p>For the second tranche (of ~70 kW of generation), the paperwork is in a holding pattern over a similiar issue.</p> <p>The third tranche of larger sites (hosting 35 to 150 kW of generation per site) is showing slow progress. I have a confirmed site for a 35kW generator, and am working through the purchase paperwork and the connection agreement. If everything goes well, I hope to (optomistically) be online by the end of October, although revenue might not show here for another three months (so January). I’ve been to several other prospective sites in this category over the last month: one of them is no longer available and three more would be leased sites (which imply longer timelines till go-live).</p> <p>One success is I’ve found a source of financing for the generators, and they are generally comfortable with 100% financing, including installation costs. However, I need to show ~25+% returns to be able to carry the financing costs, which rules out most of the first and second traches sites, but select third tranche sites should still work. I’m excited about these possibilities!</p> <p>Looking forward, I’m a little frustrated at the fact that already these (blog) updates seem to show me stuck at the same spot already. I expected the generation to take some time to come online, but I’ve been working at the first one since last October, and am still at least four months out from seeing revenue. I’m also not sure what to change to make it go faster; at least the first of the third tranche sites is a standalone business that will start bringing in income even before the generator goes live.</p> <h2>Current <span>KPI</span>’s</h2> <table> <thead> <tr> <th><span>KPI</span></th> <th>Status</th> <th>Trend</th> <th>Target Date</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>Site Count</td> <td>128 / 420</td> <td>end of January 2027</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Generation Online</td> <td>0 / 50 kW</td> </tr> <tr> <td>~$4.3k / $100k</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p>Site count growth is holding steady, although the next 6 or 7 months are going to be demanding. I’ve made my first site count target (of 120 sites by the end of July) and a month early which is wonderful, so my focus here is on the next target (of 420 sites by the end of next January).</p> <p><span>ARR</span> remains low (though the gross is growing) because on the generation side I’m paying interest on upfront installation costs, but it isn’t generated any income yet. I’ve also started to see some advertising costs, further bringing the net income down. Finally, I’ve excluded some one-off items that happened this month.</p> <h2>Review of Last Month’s Plans</h2> <ul> <li>resolve <strong>first tranch generation loan paperwork issue</strong> — sadly, still in progress, but promising progress</li> <li>resolve the Backend’s <strong>proposed change to the service agreement</strong> — done!</li> <li>launch a <strong>marketting campaign</strong> — done, but not turning into sales yet</li> </ul> <h2>Plans for the Coming Month</h2> <ul> <li>resolve my <strong>first tranch generation loan paperwork issue</strong></li> <li>launch my <strong>second marketting campaign</strong><ul> <li><em>I’m not adding it here, because they say that goals should focus on things that </em>you<em> can control, but I’d really like to see sales start coming in from these marketting campaigns.</em></li> </ul> </li> <li><strong>secure financing for my first third tranche site</strong>, ideally for both the site itself and the generator.</li> </ul> <h2>How You Can Help</h2> <p>I’m grateful for your help in growing the <a href="https://strathconapower.ca">Strathcona Power</a>. If you live in Alberta, please <a href="https://strathconapower.ca/signup">sign up</a> for electricity and natural gas, or send me your bill (to <a href="mailto:william@strathconapower.ca">William@StrathconaPower.ca</a>) and I can run a bill comparison. But to spoil the surprise, you want to be on our floating rates! If you’ve already signed up, tell a friend!</p> <p>Till next month,</p> <p> — William, <em>El Presidente</em> of Strathcona Power</p> <hr> <ol> <li> <p><a href="https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/varcoe-meta-to-unveil-massive-13b-gigawatt-scale-development-in-alberta-canadas-largest-data-centre">including a 932 <span>MW</span> center</a>, with permits to expand to double that, in the Industrial Heartland northeast of Edmonton. By comparision, the total provincial electrical demand currently peaks at ~11,000 <span>MW</span>. <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/07/strathcona-power-july-2026.html#fnref:2026070801" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p> </li> <li> <p>This is approximate June retail pricing. Floating prices can and do change month to month, and vary slightly between wire areas. <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/07/strathcona-power-july-2026.html#fnref:2026070802" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text">↩</a></p> </li> <li> <p>This is approximate May retail pricing. <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/07/strathcona-power-july-2026.html#fnref:2026070803" title="Jump back to footnote 3 in the text">↩</a></p> </li> <li> <p><em>Annualized Recurring Revenue</em>. Basically an assumption of annual revenue, based on last month’s topline income less last month’s regular costs (i.e. ignoring one-off costs). This combines both the retailing and the generation arms of the Company. <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/07/strathcona-power-july-2026.html#fnref:2026070804" title="Jump back to footnote 4 in the text">↩</a></p> </li> </ol> </div> <hr> <p>Other posts</p> <ul> <li> <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/08/strathcona-power-aug-2026.html">Building Strathcona Power — August 2026 </a> </li> </ul> <hr> <p>Other posts under <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/category/strathcona-power/">Strathcona Power</a></p> <ul> <li> <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/08/strathcona-power-aug-2026.html">Building Strathcona Power — August 2026 </a> </li> </ul> <hr> <p><a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/archives/">Click to see every post in a big list</a></p> <hr> </article> Wed, 08 Jul 2026 15:06:57 https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/06/ab-passenger-rail-ii.htmlA year ago, I <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2025/06/ab-passenger-rail.html">wrote my thoughts</a> about the in-progress Alberta Passenger Rail Master Plan. I was expecting the final report to have come out at Christmas time, but <a href="https://www.alberta.ca/system/files/tec-prmp-master-plan-executive-summary.pdf">it finally appeared</a> about two weeks ago, and just the executive summary. This is my summary after reviewing the available executive&nbsp;summary.<article morss_own_score="5.734939759036145" morss_score="20.462690955208394"> <h1> <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/06/ab-passenger-rail-ii.html" title="Permalink to Alberta Passenger Rail Master Plan — June 2026 Update"> Alberta Passenger Rail Master Plan — June 2026 Update </a> </h1> <div class="entry-content" morss_own_score="5.655502392344498" morss_score="26.1555023923445"> <p>A year ago, I <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2025/06/ab-passenger-rail.html">wrote my thoughts</a> about the in-progress Alberta Passenger Rail Master Plan. I was expecting the final report to have come out at Christmas time, but <a href="https://www.alberta.ca/system/files/tec-prmp-master-plan-executive-summary.pdf">it finally appeared</a> about two weeks ago, and just the executive summary. This is my summary after reviewing the available executive summary.</p> <p>Overall, I remain excited that the report is out, although the implementation timelines seem long and I suspect that much of the exciting infrastructure will only get built long after I might get to meaningfully enjoy it; I guess better late than never.</p> <p>Some highlights:</p> <ul> <li>they are explicitly about this involving commuter and regional (intercity) rail lines, and about having a (new) Crown corporation to run it all.</li> <li>the Edmonton-Calgary and Calgary-Banff lines are “rated highest”, and appear to be the entirety of the 15 year “delivery plan”. Commuter rail is all on the 30 year horizon which includes no other intercity routes, yet the accompanying text suggests that commuter routes might only be viable when combined with intercity rail routes (to Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, etc). Somehow Spruce Grove/Stony Plain is deemed viable and thus included but Sherwood Park is not (there is not intercity major destination west of Edmonton).</li> <li>the Edmonton-Calgary and Calgary-Banff lines are proposed to be greenfield high-speed alignments. This gives a St Albert to downtown Calgary (“end to end”) travel time of 1h45. Actual corridor selection will be part of another report.</li> <li> <p>I’m excited to see that the proposed Edmonton station is “downtown” and expected to be thru-running to both the airport (<span>YEG</span>) and St Albert. I had been afraid that the Edmonton station would end up far from downtown and/or south of the river.</p> </li> <li> <p>the 60 year “possibilities” provincial map still ignores Cold Lake and Brooks, despite the assurances that it includes all centres with a population of at least 10,000 in 2021. Peace River is not labeled either, but it likely included with Grande Prairie. Lloydminster and Camrose have both been added to the map at least, but aren’t expected to receive rail service under this plan. I also remain annoyed that Bremner (east of Sherwood Park) is ignored, but it’s current population is (effectively) zero.</p> </li> </ul> <p>The proposed (15-year?) Edmonton-Calgary network:</p> <p><img src="https://blog.minchin.ca/images/2026/ab-edmonton-calgary.png"></p> <p>The proposed 30-year plan:</p> <p><img src="https://blog.minchin.ca/images/2026/ab-30-year.png"></p> <p>So I guess we need to wait for another report before they start building. Hopefully I can take the train from Edmonton to Calgary before 2040…</p> </div> <hr> <p>Other posts</p> <ul> <li> <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/07/strathcona-power-july-2026.html">Building Strathcona Power — July 2026 </a> </li> </ul> <hr> <p><a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/archives/">Click to see every post in a big list</a></p> <hr> </article> Sun, 14 Jun 2026 17:18:59 https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/05/strathcona-power-apr-2026.html <p>The retailing business is growing slightly more quickly, up 18 sites to a total of 110. Part of this is we pushed a fundraiser with one of our fundraising partners, and part of this is personal&nbsp;sales.</p> <p>I&#8217;ve also finally got the website update live. A big part of that was I gave up on a complete rebuild, as the existing framework does everything I need it to do&nbsp;today.</p> <article morss_own_score="5.888442211055277" morss_score="24.094028803234046"> <img src="https://blog.minchin.ca/images/2026/strathcona-power-v2.4-detailed.svg"> <h1> <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/05/strathcona-power-apr-2026.html" title="Permalink to Building Strathcona Power — April 2026"> Building Strathcona Power — April 2026 </a> </h1> <div class="entry-content" morss_own_score="5.611173184357542" morss_score="82.72616811697795"> <p>To recap, I’m building up a boutique energy retailer (<a href="https://strathconapower.ca">Strathcona Power</a>), to be your local, human options for power and natural gas.</p> <p>This is a follow-up to <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/03/strathcona-power-mar-2026.html">March’s status update</a>. I delayed it a little to get May’s pricing out, but life has a way of making things take even longer.</p> <h2>Pricing Update</h2> <p>This section is general notes on electricity and natural gas pricing in Alberta, looking back at April and forward to May.</p> <p>The floating prices continue to be very low for both power and gas, and so I remain a fan of both. Fixed pricing continues to drop, and so if you want to sign up for a fixed gas price for next winter, this might be a good time to do so.</p> <p>Our pricing for May:</p> <table> <thead> <tr> <th>Term</th> <th>Electricity</th> <th>Trend</th> <th>Natural Gas</th> <th>Trend</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>Floating^{<a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/05/strathcona-power-apr-2026.html#fn:2026050501">1</a>}</td> <td>~3.6 ¢/kWh</td> <td>~$2.55/<span>GJ</span></td> </tr> <tr> <td>1 year Fixed</td> <td>7.09 ¢/kWh</td> <td>$3.49/<span>GJ</span></td> </tr> <tr> <td>2 year Fixed</td> <td>7.79 ¢/kWh</td> <td>$3.69/<span>GJ</span></td> </tr> <tr> <td>3 year Fixed</td> <td>8.39 ¢/kWh</td> <td>$3.79/<span>GJ</span></td> </tr> <tr> <td>5 year Fixed</td> <td>8.69 ¢/kWh</td> <td>$3.89/<span>GJ</span></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <h2>Retailing Progress</h2> <p>The retailing business is growing slightly more quickly, up 18 sites to a total of 110. Part of this is we pushed a fundraiser with one of our fundraising partners, and part of this is personal sales.</p> <p>I’ve also finally got the website update live. A big part of that was I gave up on a complete rebuild, as the existing framework does everything I need it to do today.</p> <p>The biggest setback this month has been a proposed change to the Backend’s service agreement. Without going into too many details, I thought the issue in question was covered by the <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/02/strathcona-power-feb-2026.html#retailing-progress">February agreement</a>, they claim it’s a new issue. Unfortunantly, it’s taken up a lot of bandwidth over the last three weeks, and remains and open concern yet; I’d hoped when I’d signed the agreement two months ago I wouldn’t have to think about it for another five years!</p> <p>Next up is to resolve the issue with the Backend, and get serious about marketing campaigns. With the website in place, it is time to figure out how to get people signing up without me needing to sit down with them (the current process bottleneck).</p> <p>Longer term, I was looking at the <a href="https://strathconapower.ca/">Strathcona Power website</a>, and currently the only search terms people are finding it with are “strathcona power” and the only links back to it are from these blog posts. I would like to improve both.</p> <h2>Generation Progress</h2> <p>A secondary line of the business I’ve been focused on is building my own generation capacity, to compliment the retail sales.</p> <p>For my first 10 kW of generation, I has originally hoping to have it installed over a month ago (i.e. when the ground un-froze). Instead, the loan has come back with a request for additional paperwork, and I still don’t have a confirmed installation cost I like (although I have managed to bring it significantly down, ~30%).</p> <p>For the second tranche (of ~70 kW of generation), the paperwork is in a holding pattern.</p> <p>The third tranche of larger sites (hosting 50 to 150 kW of generation per site) has also seen little progress. I did have a site vist of one possible purchase location, but follow ups are moving slowly. As for possible leased sites, I’ve talked to a couple of possible locations, but without better defined install costs, it’s proved hard to build an actual economic model from my side.</p> <p>That said, I have had a couple of visits with both suppliers and contractors that could prove very useful in the near future! As is becoming a theme through, getting pricing out of them has proved involved.</p> <p>Looking forward, my first focus is getting the first trache loan paperwork issue resolved. Following that, I can probably build an economic model based on the numbers I currently have a use that as a “to-be-improved-on case” but a useful case to base a proposal on.</p> <h2>Current <span>KPI</span>’s</h2> <table> <thead> <tr> <th><span>KPI</span></th> <th>Status</th> <th>Trend</th> <th>Target Date</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>Site Count</td> <td>110 / 420</td> <td>end of January 2027</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Generation Online</td> <td>0 / 50 kW</td> </tr> <tr> <td>~$4.7k / $100k</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p>Site count growth is definately up, so now the effort is to solidify it and make it repeatable. I’m close enough to my first site count target (of 120 sites by the end of July) so my focus here is on the next target (of 420 sites by the end of next January).</p> <p><span>ARR</span> is remains low (but is growing) because on the generation side I’m paying interest on upfront installation costs, but it isn’t generated any income yet.</p> <h2>Review of Last Month’s Plans</h2> <ul> <li>complete the <strong>relaunch of the website</strong>. — done!</li> <li>complete the funding and connection agreements for the second tranche, or at least <strong>have everything done on my side</strong>. — done</li> <li>make a <strong>go/no go for the third tranche generation site</strong> I’m currently looking at. — in progress. I’ve made a site visit, and received a “verbal” offer.</li> </ul> <h2>Plans for the Coming Month</h2> <ul> <li>resolve first tranch generation loan paperwork issue</li> <li>resolve the Backend’s proposed change to the service agreement</li> <li>launch a marketting campaign</li> </ul> <h2>How You Can Help</h2> <p>I’m grateful for your help in growing the <a href="https://strathconapower.ca">Strathcona Power</a>. If you live in Alberta, please <a href="https://strathconapower.ca/signup">sign up</a> for electricity and natural gas, or send me your bill (to <a href="mailto:william@strathconapower.ca">William@StrathconaPower.ca</a>) and I can run a bill comparison. If you’ve already signed up, tell a friend!</p> <p>Till next month,</p> <p> — William, <em>El Presidente</em> of Strathcona Power</p> <hr> <ol> <li> <p>This is approximate April retail pricing. Floating prices can and do change month to month, and vary slightly between wire areas. <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/05/strathcona-power-apr-2026.html#fnref:2026050501" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p> </li> <li> <p><em>Annualized Recurring Revenue</em>. Basically an assumption of annual revenue, based on last month’s topline income. This combines both the retailing and the generation arms of the Company. <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/05/strathcona-power-apr-2026.html#fnref:2026050502" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text">↩</a></p> </li> </ol> </div> <hr> <p>Other posts</p> <ul> <li> <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/06/ab-passenger-rail-ii.html">Alberta Passenger Rail Master Plan — June 2026 Update </a> </li> </ul> <hr> <p>Other posts under <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/category/strathcona-power/">Strathcona Power</a></p> <ul> <li> <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/07/strathcona-power-july-2026.html">Building Strathcona Power — July 2026 </a> </li> </ul> <hr> <p><a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/archives/">Click to see every post in a big list</a></p> <hr> </article> Wed, 06 May 2026 15:56:02 https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/03/strathcona-power-mar-2026.html <p>Most of this past month has been spent working on getting more generation online. But I&#8217;m discovering that many of those projects will have much poorer returns than I&#8217;d initially hoped for due to high (only now confirmed) installation&nbsp;costs.</p> <article morss_own_score="6.127045985970382" morss_score="24.369951391375785"> <img src="https://blog.minchin.ca/images/2026/strathcona-power-v2.4-detailed.svg"> <h1> <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/03/strathcona-power-mar-2026.html" title="Permalink to Building Strathcona Power — March 2026"> Building Strathcona Power — March 2026 </a> </h1> <div class="entry-content" morss_own_score="5.6858108108108105" morss_score="98.2688614646987"> <p>This is a continuation of series of posts on building up Strathcona Power. (Read <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/02/strathcona-power-feb-2026.html">last month’s update</a> here.)</p> <p>To recap, I’m building a boutique energy retailer (<a href="https://strathconapower.ca">Strathcona Power</a>) to provide a human touch, and that reinvests back in to the community by being a part of it. Be a part of it!</p> <h2>Pricing Update</h2> <p>This section is general notes on electricity and natural gas pricing in Alberta. Normally I would speak to March prices, but I’ve just set my April (this afternoon) so those are probably more helpful.</p> <p>The floating prices has been very low for both power and gas over the last month, so fixed power rates have started to come down (some as much as 1 ¢/kWh over the last two months), but fixed gas prices are bascically flat.</p> <p>Personally, I’m still a fan of floating prices for both power and gas.</p> <p>Our pricing for April:</p> <table> <thead> <tr> <th>Term</th> <th>Electricity</th> <th>Trend</th> <th>Natural Gas</th> <th>Trend</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>Floating^{<a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/03/strathcona-power-mar-2026.html#fn:2026033101">1</a>}</td> <td>~4.5 ¢/kWh</td> <td>~$2.58/<span>GJ</span></td> </tr> <tr> <td>1 year Fixed</td> <td>7.39 ¢/kWh</td> <td>$3.79/<span>GJ</span></td> </tr> <tr> <td>2 year Fixed</td> <td>7.89 ¢/kWh</td> <td>$3.89/<span>GJ</span></td> </tr> <tr> <td>3 year Fixed</td> <td>8.49 ¢/kWh</td> <td>$3.99/<span>GJ</span></td> </tr> <tr> <td>5 year Fixed</td> <td>8.69 ¢/kWh</td> <td>$3.99/<span>GJ</span></td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <h3>New Solar Pricing</h3> <p>One exciting change is that I was able to launch my new solar price, at 35 ¢/kWh!^{<a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/03/strathcona-power-mar-2026.html#fn:2026033102">2</a>}</p> <p>As well, your “low” solar rate (which is just one of our other prices) can now be our floating price, which tends to be lower than most of the fixed options I’ve been able to offer.</p> <p>If you have a solar system, please <a href="https://strathconapower.ca/signup">move over</a>!</p> <h3>Forward Pricing</h3> <p>Looking forward, the War in Iran is top of mind, and while <strong>oil</strong> prices are up, <strong>natural gas</strong> prices remain mostly unaffected as Alberta lacks any serious export options for gas.</p> <p><a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/02/strathcona-power-feb-2026.html#datacenter-generation">Last month</a>, I had posed the question of, Where is all the generation (~21,000 <span>MW</span> worth) for these data centers going to come from? Well, <a href="https://edmontonjournal.com/opinion/columnists/lorne-gunter-alberta-right-to-insist-ai-data-centre-proposals-include-their-own-power-supply">it seems</a> that the answer is “Bring-Your-Own-Power” (<span>BYOP</span>??), as in the data centers will be required to build sufficient generation on-site to support their own needs. I expect much of this will be natural gas powered,^{<a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/03/strathcona-power-mar-2026.html#fn:2026033103">3</a>} which may drive up natural gas prices once these start going online. Their possible effect on electricity pricing is harder to read, as on one hand, below capacity data centers are likely to sell their “extra” power on to the grid (driving prices down), while because so much power generation is gas-fired, increasing gas prices would be expected to increase power prices. In any case, any effect is likely years out.</p> <h2>Retailing Progress</h2> <p>The retailing business is growing slowly, up six sites to a total of 92. I will repeat myself from last month: This is much slower than I’d like, but also probably faster than I have a right to do to how limited time I’ve been able to put towards it.</p> <p>I’ve been working on rebuilding the website in advance of more involved marketing efforts, but I fear that it’s turning into an excuse rather than a stepping stone.</p> <p>I’ve also been hoping that my generation projects will (indirectly) result in more retailing business, but the timelines are long.</p> <p>One success I’ve seen is I’ve set up a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/people/Strathcona-Power/61586616562661/">Facebook</a> and a <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/company/strathconapower/">LinkedIn</a> page, and am cross-posting these updates there!</p> <h2>Generation Progress</h2> <p>A secondary line of the business I’ve been focused on is building my own generation capacity, to compliment the retail sales.</p> <p>Most of this past month has been spent working on getting more generation online. But I’m discovering that many of those projects will have much poorer returns than I’d initially hoped for due to high (only now confirmed) installation costs.</p> <p>For my first 10 kW of generation, the loan agreement has come through, but the installation costs are now projected to be ~5x what I’d initially planned for. I’m looking for ways to bring that down, but fear this site may be indefinitely shelved as non-economical.</p> <p>For the second tranche (of ~70 kW of generation), the paperwork is moving along, but is still in process, and I expect will be for at least another two months. These sites also suffer from oversized installation costs, but the math may still pencil out here.</p> <p>The third tranche of larger sites (hosting 50 to 150 kW of generation per site) is likely be my focus this coming month. These sites have much more managable installation costs relatively to the expected income. I’m considering both acquiring (buying) and leasing sites. I put in an offer to buy one site this last month (it wasn’t selected) and am working to put together a site visit for second (possible) site next week. The leased sites are an interesting option that I’m trying to figure out how to present to landlords. The downsite of these larger sites is I expect them to take a minimum of 6 months between picking the site and having it start to make money.</p> <h2>Current <span>KPI</span>’s</h2> <table> <thead> <tr> <th><span>KPI</span></th> <th>Status</th> <th>Trend</th> <th>Target Date</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>Site Count</td> <td>92 / 420</td> <td>end of January 2027</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Generation Online</td> <td>0 / 50 kW</td> </tr> <tr> <td>~$3.9k / $100k</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p>In other circumstances, I’d feel very good about the site count growth, but the new Backend agreement has fairly demanding growth requirements that take away much of the celebration. But one good news is I’m close enough to my first site count target (of 120 sites by the end of July) that I’m comfortable shifting my focus to the next target (of 420 sites by the end of next January). This later target will required ~5x the previous monthly growth target (at 33 new sites per month, vs the previous 7), and I need to build some sort of advertising program to get there.</p> <p>For generation, I’ve realized that my first sites may not pencil out, and so am considering other options.</p> <p><span>ARR</span> is particularly low at this point because on the generation side I’m paying interest on upfront installation costs, but it isn’t generated any income yet. But at least we’re positive this month!</p> <h2>Review of Last Month’s Plans</h2> <ul> <li><strong>roll out of new logo.</strong> — complete</li> <li><strong>review of the Company’s online presence.</strong> — incomplete, although I’ve laid some groundwork for this.</li> <li><strong>complete funding and connection agreements for the second tranche (~70 kW) of generation sites.</strong> — progress, but incomplete. But mostly waiting for beaucratic processes to play out at this point.</li> </ul> <h2>Plans for the Coming Month</h2> <ul> <li>complete the relaunch of the website.</li> <li>complete the funding and connection agreements for the second tranche, or at least have everything done on my side.</li> <li>make a go/no go for the third tranche generation site I’m currently looking at. And take next steps: if a go, have a purchase offer presented, and if no-go, have the next candidate site picked out.</li> </ul> <h2>How You Can Help</h2> <p>I’m grateful for your help in growing the <a href="https://strathconapower.ca">Strathcona Power</a>. If you live in Alberta, please <a href="https://strathconapower.ca/signup">sign up</a> for electricity and natural gas, or send me your bill (to <a href="mailto:william@strathconapower.ca">William@StrathconaPower.ca</a>) and I can run a bill comparison. If you’ve already signed up, tell a friend!</p> <p>Till next month,</p> <p> — William, <em>El Presidente</em> of Strathcona Power</p> <hr> <ol> <li> <p>This is approximate March retail pricing. Floating prices can and do change month to month, and vary slightly between wire areas. <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/03/strathcona-power-mar-2026.html#fnref:2026033101" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p> </li> <li> <p>Previously, the solar rate was limited to 33.33 ¢/kWh. <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/03/strathcona-power-mar-2026.html#fnref:2026033102" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text">↩</a></p> </li> <li> <p>if nothing else, solar doesn’t work at night but the data centers want to… <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/03/strathcona-power-mar-2026.html#fnref:2026033103" title="Jump back to footnote 3 in the text">↩</a></p> </li> <li> <p><em>Annualized Recurring Revenue</em>. Basically an assumption of annual revenue, based on last month’s topline income. This combines both the retailing and the generation arms of the Company. <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/03/strathcona-power-mar-2026.html#fnref:2026033104" title="Jump back to footnote 4 in the text">↩</a></p> </li> </ol> </div> <hr> <p>Other posts</p> <ul> <li> <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/05/strathcona-power-apr-2026.html">Building Strathcona Power — April 2026 </a> </li> </ul> <hr> <p>Other posts under <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/category/strathcona-power/">Strathcona Power</a></p> <ul> <li> <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/05/strathcona-power-apr-2026.html">Building Strathcona Power — April 2026 </a> </li> </ul> <hr> <p><a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/archives/">Click to see every post in a big list</a></p> <hr> </article> Tue, 31 Mar 2026 17:41:59 https://blog.minchin.ca/2025/12/local-subdomains-pihole.htmlLocally, I run a Pi-Hole to provide ad blocking on the local network<sup id="fnref:2025121301"><a class="footnote-ref" href="#fn:2025121301">1</a></sup> but I also run a Docker server to which I want to forward various subdomains (which are then routed to containers using <em>Træfik</em>). I had this set up, but my upgrade from v5 to v6 of Pi-Hole blew this away (as I needed a new <span class="caps">SD</span> card for the Raspberry Pi it was running on) (see also the <a href="https://pi-hole.net/blog/2025/02/21/v6-post-release-fixes-and-findings/">v6 release notes</a>).<article morss_own_score="5.660287081339713" morss_score="24.118917475335962"> <h1> <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2025/12/local-subdomains-pihole.html" title="Permalink to Forward All Local Server Subdomains Using Pi-Hole"> Forward All Local Server Subdomains Using Pi-Hole </a> </h1> <div class="entry-content" morss_own_score="5.617260787992495" morss_score="31.98488973056751"> <p>Locally, I run a Pi-Hole to provide ad blocking on the local network^{<a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2025/12/local-subdomains-pihole.html#fn:2025121301">1</a>} but I also run a Docker server to which I want to forward various subdomains (which are then routed to containers using <em>Træfik</em>). I had this set up, but my upgrade from v5 to v6 of Pi-Hole blew this away (as I needed a new <span>SD</span> card for the Raspberry Pi it was running on) (see also the <a href="https://pi-hole.net/blog/2025/02/21/v6-post-release-fixes-and-findings/">v6 release notes</a>).</p> <p>In way of background, Pi-Hole is running <em>dnsmasq</em> under the hood, and so you can configure it like any <em>dnsmasq</em> instance, and this is what I was doing with Pi-Hole v5: placing configuration files (with the lines below) in text files in the <code>/etc/dnsmasq.d/</code> folder. But with Pi-Hole v6, they actually expose this directly on the web interface:^{<a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2025/12/local-subdomains-pihole.html#fn:2025121302">2</a>}, so that’s where I (re-)set it up.</p> <p>To wit:</p> <ul> <li>log in to your Pi-Hole (likely at <a href="http://pi.hole/admin">http://pi.hole/admin</a>)</li> <li>click the “Settings” dropdown on the left menu</li> <li>click on “System” (or really any of the sub-options)</li> <li>in the top right, you will see a green toggle that says “Basic”. Click on it, and it should now be red and say “Expert”</li> <li>click on “All Settings” (a new option under “Settings” in the left menu)</li> <li>click on the “Miscellaneous” tab along the top</li> <li>scroll down to “misc.dnsmasq_lines”. This is the setting we want!</li> </ul> <p>Under “misc.dnsmasq_lines”, you can add any configuration for <em>dnsmasq</em> you want. But we want to only add a line like this:</p> <pre><code><span>address</span><span>=</span><span>/</span><span>cool</span><span>-</span><span>server</span><span>.</span><span>lan</span><span>/</span><span>192.168.1.100</span> </code></pre> <p><img src="https://blog.minchin.ca/images/2025/pihole-dnsmasq-lines.png"></p> <p><code>address=</code> is telling <em>dnsmasq</em> (and thus Pi-Hole) that we’re changing how this particular address (or domain name) is being resolved. <code>/cool-server.lan</code> is the name of our server, <strong>and includes all subdomains</strong> (so <code>music.cool-server.lan</code> gets forwarded to the same place) and <code>/192.168.1.100</code> is the server’s <span>IP</span> address^{<a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2025/12/local-subdomains-pihole.html#fn:2025121303">3</a>} and where the address is forwarded to. This assumes that your server will be able to make sense of what to do with the domain names (which is what <em>Træfik</em> on the server is for).</p> <p>I also saw some references to using <code>server=</code> in lieu of <code>address=</code>, and the two seemed to work the same in my brief testing. However, (I think) <code>server</code> is meant to point to an upstream <span>DNS</span> server (that would then resolve the addresses forwarded). (See also the <a href="https://thekelleys.org.uk/dnsmasq/docs/dnsmasq-man.html">man page for <em>dnsmasq</em></a>.)</p> <p>For reference, I am currently running Pi-Hole Core v6.3, <span>FTL</span> v6.4.1, and Web interface v6.4.</p> <p>I leave it as an exercise for the reader, but I expect this could be leveraged to provide split-horizon <span>DNS</span>^{<a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2025/12/local-subdomains-pihole.html#fn:2025121304">4</a>} if wanted.</p> <hr> <ol> <li> <p>As a side note, it’s amazing how much of a difference this makes. The internet seems usable at home and surprisingly unreadable at times when I’m on the go…. <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2025/12/local-subdomains-pihole.html#fnref:2025121301" title="Jump back to footnote 1 in the text">↩</a></p> </li> <li> <p>Because this is now part of the Pi-Hole configuration this way, it should be included in their <em>Teleporter</em> backups. <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2025/12/local-subdomains-pihole.html#fnref:2025121302" title="Jump back to footnote 2 in the text">↩</a></p> </li> <li> <p>You’ll want your server to have a static <span>IP</span> address. <span>DHCP</span> reservations have worked for me. <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2025/12/local-subdomains-pihole.html#fnref:2025121303" title="Jump back to footnote 3 in the text">↩</a></p> </li> <li> <p><em>Split Horizon <span>DNS</span></em> is where certain “public” domain names resolve to point to internal servers inside your network, but on the internet they point to (different) public servers (or don’t resolve at all). This could be useful, for example, if you want an <span>SSL</span> certificate through Let’s Encrypt, which typically requires that they be able to resolve the domain name in question, without you putting the “real” server online. <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2025/12/local-subdomains-pihole.html#fnref:2025121304" title="Jump back to footnote 4 in the text">↩</a></p> </li> </ol> </div> <hr> <p>Other posts</p> <ul> <li> <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/2026/01/strathcona-power-it-begins.html">Building Strathcona Power — It Begins! </a> </li> </ul> <hr> <p>Other posts under <a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/category/2025/">2025</a></p> <hr> <p><a href="https://blog.minchin.ca/archives/">Click to see every post in a big list</a></p> <hr> </article> Sat, 13 Dec 2025 10:59:00