This has got the 'reverse Vietnam' feel about it. Vietnam was a war that was supposed to knock over one Communist domino and cause the whole region to fall. This reverse is if one economic nutter falls, they are worried that it will cause a domino effect and expose the other nutters a.k.a them.

Like *everything* else, this is an effect of economics. Standard household burglary is now a very low margin endeavour, only the desperate do it. Side note: I leave the garage open because someone smashing the door to bits to look in and see nothing of value would be annoying for both of us.

Just for full year wrap around, the winter version of this is approaching: We're only about a month away from gas peaker balancing mechanism offer prices being reported in the media. I can't wait.

Such an interesting potential shift, but there is something very funny here: Putin spent ~20 years making the EU dependent on Russian gas, and then had all the freedom in the world to pick the exact moment to weaponise it. He got it so wrong, he is going to make Russia dependent on China. Oops.

First of all, this has a great headline. Secondly, if you think the UK network has undergone a big transformation, you ain't seen nothing yet. From Q4'25 through 2026/7, there is a period of overdrive baked in as the pre-COVID, pre-Ukraine AR4 big beasts land. www.ecoticias.com/en/3-6-gw-cl...

Got to love shoulder season (i.e. when it's not cold, but the storms are coming in), at 1pm today it will 6 hours of free* power over the last week, meaning amongst other things I won't have to pay any fuel cost for our EV for close to 3 weeks. (Last overnight charge ~2 weeks ago) *see next post

"Most of you will have seen on the motorway the sight of an electric car burning away" Apart from being bonkers, I *really* want to know who he thought he was talking to. I bet even a mob of firefighters would have looked confused at that.

Any politician who uses the trope of "why should we decarbonise if China continues to build coal?" should be shot into the sun. Any politician who can't see that China is shaping up to dominate the energy transition should be sent to a re-education camp*. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

This thread is very, very good. I started out as a PV market analyst back in '09 and this was a talking point then. Was largely nonsense then, still is now as a growing market *has* to front lead installs! (The graph below is also wrong, installations at ~600GW in 2024)

It begins: www.wbur.org/news/2025/09...

What a silly statement from Badenoch. Hasn't she ever heard of a small thing called a LOOM!?

I've enacted the 2nd phase of my strategy. Off the gas tracker to a 12m fix (no exit fee) which I fully intend to bail on sometime early next year. Power a bit different as need an EV tariff (fixed overnight low price periods) so can't be as tricky with that but would be the same otherwise.

BlueSky may well be dying, I don't know, and ultimately I'm quite nihilistic in the sense of who cares? If it dwindles I'll go elsewhere. However, I don't agree with the 2nd part of below...(next post)

Do you remember the days that a positive DCO decision announcement for GW-scale offshore wind was big news? Well, it's not anymore. Absolutely standard. www.gov.uk/government/n...

Graph of the day. (OK, it was posted two days ago but I'm not a time traveller so today will have to do).

This thread is fundamentally bang on the money. It's like the policy of Maximum Economic Recovery doesn't exist...apart from it being in place for years upon years and literally the corner piece of the OGA's point of existence. Reform have fracking nonsense. The Torys have North Sea nonsense.

While I'm still sceptical of how this stacks up on additional output Vs increased opex against the 15 MW sweet spot that seems to be emerging (happy to be proved wrong!), the 'keep Chinese turbines out the North Sea' position clearly ain't gonna last long...

Any article that contains the word 'dunkelflaute' Any article that contains the phrase 'when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow' Any article written by Ross Clark. This is a niche list.

Such fond memories of the period in the red circle. All the breathless articles about how lithium was running out, prices were high forever more and we were all ultimately going to die (mostly in the Telegraph). Anyone who had any level of real insight at all: U WOT M8?

I promise you, this will develop into one of the funniest stories in energy for sometime. The ultra-pro fracking nutters: can't frack / won't frack. Couldn't even dream up that much joy if I tried. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

This really is a great article for combining energy system transition with nerdy weather insights. Fully recommend a read. One trend below I've personally missed is the up-sizing of average resi-PV. I'm a dinosaur, always just used the '3kW' assumption from FiT days, but it's dying out.

Undoubtedly a good idea. At a time when new retailers were happy to pop up and live day by day not hedging and farming the day ahead/futures spread - Octopus came in with a whole system approach. That kind of thinking is what's needed. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

These tend to float around a bit so this might get revised down (or up!) but looking like the US has once again entered *record* territory for LNG export volumes (just). Compared to end of August-24 that's 3 Bcf higher per day (up ~25%).

Haven't checked in on European gas storage trends recently, but now we're all returning from our holidays it's time to see Bloomberg's doom mongering in action. Oh. That's weird. Storage has spent the summer broadly filling faster than the 5yr average. That shouldn't be!? Javier Blas said so...

I have no idea of whether this is true or not (because it's all viewed through the usual lens of propaganda and fog of war) but very much appears to be a big stepping up of energy infrastructure targeting going on. Reaction of oil and gas markets is: *shrug*

On a day when Reform seem to be releasing mad policy on immigration, I would implore energy Spads to be paying a lot of attention to this because it is the kind of* mad conclusion of Tice's mad letter about AR7. *see next post www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...

Pakistan was the case study of the knock on effect of the EU writing blank cheques for LNG imports in the dark days of 2022. Completely ripped market access out the hands of less able (economically speaking) market actors. Well, well, well. Look how quickly the substitution effect can rage.

Show me you have no idea what you're campaigning about, without telling me you have no idea what you're campaigning about. www.theguardian.com/business/202...

If you dig into the methodology notes of FES 2025, you notice that the model has been allowed to go 'maximalist' to 2030 (i.e. not optimise for a specific technology set a.k.a build everything). I was sceptical that this was a good modelling technique. Ed Miliband: hold my bacon sandwich.

Latest check in on China fighting the EU to death on LNG. China back up to seasonal norm (LHS) but when you look at it year on year, volumes are way, way, way down (RHS). We're getting nearer every day to the 'tight gas market' story being binned off forever.

You know any thread posted by Lauri is going to be a banger, but this might be an all timer. I will print this and post it to the next politician (Reform or Tory, probably) who rolls out the 'China is building coal' trope. The context and understanding is vital.

Ironically, this should appear in the 'gov.uk' solar PV deployment stats just in time for the sun to puff up into a red giant and consume us all. The 50 kW to ≤ 5 MW data line remains a thing of wonder for me - currently tells you 0.3 MW installed in GB in 2025 (1 installation!)

Checking in on my forecast. At the time (mid/late May) we were ~90p/th. Now 78-82p/th range. Since then, front month ran up to >100p/th (clearly expected as long position money was pouring in), but prices have resolutely bounced off the 75-80p/th floor. But gas storage targets (kind of) remain...

On a technical and regulatory basis, Hungary is more of the 'wtf' market here. But, otherwise, it's stuff like this that will slowly creep through to public consciousness that solar PV is going to win *everywhere* and every other generation type is going to have to deal with that.

This is, on the one hand, going to be terrible. On the other hand, it is also going to be hilarious.

Much like away fans at the Etihad wonder where all the Man City fans were when they were 'less good', I wonder where all the commentators were on balancing costs in 2021-2023. That's right. Not saying anything because it was all gas price driven. But now it's curtailment it's culture war central.

I was today years old when I figured out my laptop charger also charges my phone. Game. Changer.

LinkedIn is awful. But sometimes it throws up a data viz like this. That's the good stuff right there. Stolen from Magnus Hornø Gottlieb. So thanks to you, sir.

EU Commission now forecasting 90% underground gas storage target is easily in range* by the end of October. I'm shocked. Shocked I tell you. Well, not that shocked. (*it is only undercut by limited possibility of *very* cold October in the downside outlook)

I've said this before...I have worked with a lot of businesses on solar PV recently and not one has paid anywhere near this amount. Spot power price is ~8p/kWh right now, and non-commodity costs (on a pass through) are ~11p/kWh (incl CCL). So to exclude CCL and get to 25p/kWh is fantasy.

You would think a guy who is saying that oil and gas from the North Sea is the way to go (which doesn't exist), wouldn't take this line. There are NCS platforms that happily lived out there corrosion free(ish) for 40+ years. What does he think monopiles are made out of? Sawdust?

You see this all the bloody time in energy. Almost always made up nonsense but once they get the headline it's job done. It's imprinted in the public consciousness. No level of fact checking and 'pointing out' changes that. They just move onto the next one to repeat the process.

Not just batteries though. There is a whole gamut of LDES technologies eyeing up the multi-billion (emphasis on 'multi') market size that has been created by the nuclear industry convincing policymakers about the absolute value of 'baseload'. One will do it, that's for sure.

If natural gas prices hold at the sub-80p/th level through to the beginning of August, given last year the price started an upwards march about now, prices will be 20% lower year-on-year by August 2nd. That would widen to a 25% discount by mid August. Gas prices bringing some inflation relief

Another funny observation. The number of BEVs (of all vehicle types) on the road is *highest* in the *hydrogen evolution* pathway. Even if you set up a model to favour hydrogen (an assumed hydrogen network for example), you still can't magic up hydrogen fuelled transport.

Finally having a good rummage through the FES databook (having missed FES day). First impression: This year 'Gas CCS' looks to be the big red button labelled "push this to make your model not blow up as you approach a low emission system and think about peak demand".

I've just had to go through the servicing/MOT on the 4 year old EV. Servicing is the wild west. You get 'specialist' places telling you it's a £300-£400 job with loads of technical terms...

Con artists like Tice and Net Zero Watch get their traction by conflating 'old' renewables with 'new'. Old renewables were expensive (duh). They are still being funded by legacy subsidy regimes (duh). But new renewables are not because of the things learnt when they were expensive.

If there is one thing I can breathe a sigh of relief at, given the zonal pricing element of REMA is settled, is that Octopus will hopefully drop this context free-information free-populist driven nonsense campaign (ohhhh, look big numbers!)

Has anyone checked on this guy's well being? Or if he holds a membership to a certain proscribed right wing organisation at the very least.