Today we had two of our sail-equipped ships at sea… and both had over half their propulsion being provided by their sails! These figures aren’t too common as we aim for 10-15% average across a year, but it demonstrates the potential when the conditions are right!

Hello @octopus.energy I’m curious - Greener Nights are awesome, but a bit of a faff to look up… they’re not in the app yet right? Would a ‘Use Greener Nights’ option within the smart charging setup be workable? Let me plug in every night, let you schedule my charging when it’s Greener 🐙⚡️

Spotted this coming in iOS26: Adaptive Temperature automatically adjusts your thermostat to your preferred temperature when you’re on your way home, and adjusts to save energy when you leave for the day or go on vacation.

When I first put solar panels on my house, I was opening the app all the time to see what was going on with them. Were they generating? How much? How much power was I using? While that obsession has calmed down, now I find myself doing the same with our ships using sails…

We’re just days away from taking delivery of our fourth wind-equipped ‘AeroPower’ vessel. The first ever newbuild, and the first tanker, to have BAR Technologies WindWings fitted! With 2.5x the wing area of an A380, we expect to save over 1,200 tonnes of fuel and 3,800 tonnes of CO2 each year.

Something weird with the location data on Thameslink today, around St Pancras/Farringdon area - Both this morning and now on my way home, my phone ‘Automatic’ time zone has decided I’m in Jerusalem. A bit of a surprise to look at my watch and see I’ve lost two hours 😳😅

NOAA, the agency with ocean scientists who are the most concerned about deep seabed mining's environmental impacts, just promoted the Trump admin's deep seabed mining Executive Order in a news release. www.noaa.gov/news-release...

One of my favourite people launched her new podcast today, ‘RSE for Grown-ups’. They cover the UK relationships and sex education curriculum, with extra insights from her work in outreach at Luton Sexual Health. The first three episodes are out, with more to follow 🤓 youtu.be/opT3JfEBYp0?...

Home Assistant things I’m doing in my fresh start system, based on learnings and frustrations of the past… 1) More template sensors for key things like solar generation where I want a long-term history. Means I can point the template at a new device if/when I need to, and not lose history.

After almost 4 years of running 24/7, and the last year especially being pushed a little hard… my tiny computer running Home Assistant died today. Was I diligent in keeping backups? No… the last one was from Jan 😅 Will I restore that backup? Tbh not sure - sometimes starting fresh is nice!

You’re probably going to hear (or already have) about the Supreme Court’s ruling on trans people today. Weirdly, the Supreme Court didn’t hear from a single trans person when making their decision. Funny how that keeps happening, huh! www.wearequeeraf.com/uk-supreme-c...

This series, now 6 years old, hits even closer to home now than it did when it first aired. Right down to Viv’s particular shade of makeup… www.netflix.com/us/title/802...

I think many miss the significance of this - The IMO Net-zero Framework is the first in the world to combine mandatory emissions limits and GHG pricing across an entire industry sector. A sector that is one of the most difficult to decarbonise too! www.imo.org/en/MediaCent...

Big moves today, making ‘business as usual’ more expensive for shipping. This makes every tonne of fossil fuel that much more expensive to use, helping drive the uptake of zero-GHG energy globally. www.bunkerspot.com/global/64864...

It’s here! Or first sails setting… well… sail! Just the first in our AeroPower order book 🤓 www.rivieramm.com/news-content...

Yes it is still winter. Yes I did still sow some seeds at the allotment today. And yes, I did finally put a salvaged curved glass shower door to use to help add some warmth to the seeds!

As well as all the current shipping stuff (Suez Canal not in use… new EU regulations this year… new global regulations being discussed…) USA is said to have locked and loaded yet another executive order imposing tariffs on ships built in, or ships from fleets with ships built in, China.

In case you were wondering, the next ship in this series is in preparation now before delivery to us. And yes, this one does have sails. And yes, the sails are enormous. And yes, I am very very excited 🤓

Not quite sure how to sum it up, but at work there are SO MANY things happening in the next couple of weeks that are AMAZING and I don’t even know where to begin. It’s hard work, but it’s so cooooool!

“Shoot, aim, ready.” Reckless Trump administration officials fired over 300 National Nuclear Security Administration employees, including those overseeing our nuclear arsenal. Now they’re trying to get them to come back. We have 1435 days left of this shitshow!

There’s a Demand Flexibility Service event now (an @octopus.energy Saving Session for most!)… But priced so low that though I can help more, it would end up costing me. I’d normally dump my battery to help the grid, but the incentive doesn’t justify having to buy electricity later this evening.

Doing my 2024 home energy stuff because I finally have time for it! To start, here’s how my import and export has been distributed across the day. Import almost exclusively off-peak, and export prioritised during the evening peak.

In a ‘can’t make this up’ moment, a second group of ‘revenue protection’ boarded, realised the other group had already been and promptly sat down for a break. Revenue. So important they’ll protect it twice.

To the gent on my train kicking off at ‘revenue protection’: Totally agree that Thameslink trains are overpriced, unreliable and overfilled. Totally appreciate you having a perfectly legit ticket but kept them occupied until the next station before showing them anyway 🤓

So it doesn’t matter if you're a company in the US, China, or elsewhere. DeepSeek should be a cue to pivot HARD toward investing in far more efficient methods of AI development. Even if you care nothing about community & climate impacts, it’s just better business. 19/

I’ve been watching news of Trump admin disabling CDC with suspicion, but @apoorvanyt.bsky.social is a great journalist so I have to believe. Some countries rely 100% on PEPFAR for HIV drugs. They don’t have the infrastructure. People will get ill and die without meds. This is extremely concerning.

Think the train tracking thingy is broken in Flitwick. Two days in a row my train has been ‘delayed’ but then springs to life once it leaves Harlington. Screenshots taken just seconds apart.

Finishing up a trip back to NZ. A trip that was meant to happen, but not quite this soon, and definitely not for this reason. Losing my foster father so unexpectedly, after 4 years of thriving post-cancer, wasn’t on my radar. But here we are.

They’re not perfect, but it is reassuring to see Apple pushing back against nonsense shareholder proposals. 9to5mac.com/2025/01/10/a...

Great if somewhat disturbing thread here by @rubenmathisen.bsky.social. Can you imagine thinking that gender *equality* has gone to far...? Boys might be forgiven...but actual grown men...? 😧

My 2025 has started with calls bringing bad news from home in NZ, and a last minute flight around the world. It’s not my favourite start to a year, so I’m very much looking forward to being with family soon.

I’m finding it interesting to see the tracking of CO2 emissions for my home from Predbat. Today has been around 1.5 kg of CO2, and tomorrow is projected to add just 0.4 kg more! Plenty of wind tonight 🤓

Congratulations UK for finishing Netflix.

Quite a difference from the midnight prediction, mainly because I didn’t have a load of laundry washing and drying last night I reckon! Cool to see it tracking and adjusting to my actual use, and the energy execution plan changing as it goes.

Thoroughly pleasant Boxing Day. First, constructing this hand-cranked film projector that has a tiny dynamo and LED, and even an adjustable lens for focus…

Morrisons looking a bit manky in the bread department. Is this why we have plastic wrapped everything?

Happy post-solstice to all the Northern hemisphere solar owners! Longer and brighter days from here on! Southern hemisphere owners: my condolences…

MacBook arrived home again safe and sound! Well, not quite my MacBook - I think only the screen is original as Apple replaced everything else. I only paid for a battery though 🤷‍♂️

Have an appointment today to see about replacing the battery in my 8+ year old MacBook Pro. There are parts and guides available online, but it is a bit involved… let’s see what the pros say 🤞

This week saw the first proper voyage of our brand new ship! It’s been great seeing our efficiency measures in operation (finally!), but it also allows us to do something else - We started digital twin simulations of these voyages, and their actual wind conditions, for our upcoming rotorsails!

Because I get excited about geeky things: Today I found a way to not only edit notifications to be sent when generated from our vessel data… But that I can include buttons in the notifications that create a new, pre-filled email with the suggested next steps 🤓

Hard to believe this current round of scientific literacy testing… Dairy cow feed supplements targeting their methane emissions, and the wild speculation around them. Approvals in 68 countries and 15 years of studies showing it’s safe, but some shouty person on TT said bill gates blah blah 😅

Major milestone this week as we took delivery of the first of 16 vessels in our series of chemical tankers! This was the first newbuild project that our team had real input on, identifying measures to take this already efficient vessel to another level. See that white ‘barrel’ near the front?

So this 15yo ship is performing the same as, if not slightly better than, when she was new! This is quite an accomplishment as all sorts of things accumulate over a ship’s life. Compared to her pre-docking performance, we expect her to save around 5,000 tonnes of CO2 per year 👍

I don’t know what came over me today, but had a mad tidy and reorganise and for the first time in years all my theatre programs are out of a cardboard box! Need to go more and keep adding to these 🤓

World will install ~750GW solar in 2024 ☀️1.1MWh/kW life cycle energy to make solar panels ☀️750GW needs 825TWh to produce ☀️Generates ~1,314TWh/year once operational ☀️Energy payback time: ~7.5 months ☀️Adds 0.8% of global energy supply Renewables = fast returns + long-term gains! #Solar #NetZero

The other day I was trying to find some info on just what was wrong with the lizzie line. Threads didn’t want to help…

In May 2023, the first of the Liverpool City Region’s new £10m fleet of state-of-the-art Hydrogen buses hit the road - heralded as a ‘big step forward’ So what happened to the buses & why are they all now off the road and stored in depots around the region? www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpo...

Would love if a the end of #Wicked a voice says “there will now be a 525,600 min intermission” causing half the theater to say “thank you 525,600 minutes” and the other half to belt out “how do you measure, measure a year!?” 💚🤍🩷🖤

Seriously windy (c.20GW) in the UK - very close to record-breaking. Flexibility from storage is working hard. Here's Salisbury (the battery, not the city). Red represents their traded position and green the flexibility dispatches from the system operator right before delivery.