AI LLMs can generate slop, but they can also debunk AI-generated slop! I couldn't verify any of the below, so I asked ChatGPT. Answer: Japan has not built 3,200+ km of solar canopy for the Shinkansen. The image is AI slop. There are no credible engineering, gov't, or company sources for any of this.

Forgive me if this is getting repetitive, but this is the first time creating sankey diagrams. Here’s latest take showing energy flows in my 100yo house in Suffolk UK with heat pump, 14kW east west PV array, 13kWh battery & EV. Net cost of electricity for month was £44. Mean temp for month was 8°C.

Another look at the energy used by our 100yo house in Suffolk this March so far. We have a 14kW east/west PV array, 10 kWh battery, EV & heat pump. We used 2,500kWh of energy, but of that we only needed to buy 612kWh and we also sold back 345kWh. Here are the energy flows:

Here are energy flows for our 100 yo house for March so far. Solar generated 80% of requirement (heating, hot water, cooking, car etc) and with smarter control of the battery we could have been more self sufficient. I find this utterly amazing. 7kW one each of east and west roof faces.

It all felt very coordinated. Interesting that it was apparently illegal! Why oh why did Vaillant need to participate in this! FYI @chrisnelder.bsky.social

Available in red…

Cracking news!

This is excellent news. Go to the shops. Buy a thing. Plug it in and then immediately harvest energy from the sun. I’m guessing that this will have a power limit before it needs a proper spur from the consumer unit, DNO approval and MSC certification etc, but it’s really helpful.

New Zealand imports all its petrol, diesel and fuel oil. Their fuel prices spiked within a few days of the Strait of Hormuz being blocked. Suddenly there was a mad rush on people wanting to buy EVs - even old second hand Leafs.

Good morning. One thing we need to think about is the price elasticity of demand for oil and gas (ie. how much demand falls when prices rise). The OBR has the price elasticity of natural gas at ~0.1. Doubling the price lowers demand by only 10%. So if we lose 20% of supply, price would need to…ouch

2nd hand electric cars are bonkers cheap at the moment. This is a typical price for a 5yo 66,000 mile mg5 electric estate car with 200 mile range which, btw, is still under the manufacturer’s 80,000 mile / 7 year warranty. I would immediately buy one if I didn’t already own one!

Today we generated 50kWh of electricity from PV array on roof of our 100yo house. We used this to heat our house + hot water using a heat pump with 15kWh electricity (replacing 50kWh of gas.) And added 140 miles range to our EV using 35kWh electricity (replacing 14 litres or 140 kWh petrol)

It’s disappointing that this @theguardian.com article about lithium ion battery fires doesn’t mention that many of the fires likely to be caused by scandalously badly made unbranded or fake branded batteries that should never be offered for sale. www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Could one of the ‘achievements’ of autonomous vehicles be to reduce average occupancy of cars on our roads to < 1! (In 2024 average occupancy in England was only 1.1).

Inflation doesn’t just happen, it has a trigger or a number of triggers and this talk discusses a reasonably common trigger, a fossil fuel price spike, which they call ‘fossilflation’. These talks and always full of insight and well worth the annual subscription in my view!

Kier Starmer: "What gives us control is renewables. Our own home-grown energy which is then more secure and more independent. That’s why I think we should go further and faster on renewables. Let’s get control of our own energy…so we don’t have to keep worrying that our bills are going to go up"

Those still labo(u)ring under the false idea that UK electricity prices are high because of its energy transition (a claim repeated endlessly by anti-transition Tory and Reform politicians) would do well to read this short thread and study the charts. Renewables are the solution, not the problem!

I can highly recommend this thread + linked article. Reading it I now properly understand how marginal pricing works and why the linkage between gas and electricity pricing in the uk has weakened recently and should be largely history within 4 years (as it already is in Spain) and how CfD helps.

I can't resist a good Sankey diagram, and earlier this week the Climate Change Committee re-published their version of the UK energy system. Three interesting takeaways for those who missed it first time 👇

Learn why China is building new coal-fired power plants at a record pace while its use of coal for power generation has been *falling* and why the pipeline of new coal plants hit a record high even while its existing coal power plants are sitting idle about half the time.

Best roundup of the effects of Trump's war on Iran on the global energy system so far is from @carbonbrief.org (no surprise there): www.carbonbrief.org/qa-what-does... Don't believe the placations - these markets are going to be disrupted for a while.

Got oil heating? Get a heat pump cleanenergy.campaign.gov.uk/heat-pump/

Apropos of nothing in particular, just resharing this chart showing why North Sea gas is drying up (we burned it all already)

This is a good moment for Europe & UK to remember that they can stick up wind and solar, insulates houses, far quicker than they can find new gas in e.g. North Sea If you're chasing more gas, it's now a case of which unreliable regime you prefer to depend on news.sky.com/story/market...

The UK government's sanguine support for the breaking of international law (that included the reported killing of 150 people in a school), sits oddly with their furrowed-brow, earnest insistence on jailing people for holding paper signs protesting against genocide www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

What a great report by the Norwegian Consumer Council on how digital products and services are getting worse (enshittification)! Lots of good explanations and examples, but also very actionable with policy recommendations.

Rather puzzled / alarmed by this setup. A 210L unvented cylinder sitting on shelf supported by scarily thin struts with no sign of an expansion vessel anywhere. And in case you are wondering, I’m very sure it isn’t a bubble top. But.. no sign of any discharge from pressure release outside.

The world is turning upside down with tariff wars and Epstein revelations It’s reassuring to see normality in some places Like the news that Hinkley Point C nuclear power station is going to be even more over time & over budget giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...

@energysmartwv.bsky.social Nate. I once saw pictures of a domestic heat pump being removed that has the external heat exchanger and its associated fan housed separate from the compressor and associated power electronics.

And as a rough comparison: Hinkley Point C: - estimate now up to £35bn+ - 6 million homes - proposed 2008, ready approx 2030 Dogger Bank Wind Farm: - sub £10bn - 6 million homes - proposed 2008, already producing power

Pleased to report that I did not get this embarrassingly wrong: the government has not abolished or amended the Boiler Upgrade Scheme at this Budget. The ECO levy has been abolished, but the extra government funding to replace it will soften that.

🧊❄️ “Brutal cold snaps” and a “barrage of snow” - how accurate were these headlines? We review the most dramatic weather headlines from this week and separate fact from fiction. Read more 👇

Grid scale batteries are changing our electricity system. Excellent new visual story on batteries in FT today shows just how far this technology has evolved. Fasten your seatbelts, this is just the beginning. ig.ft.com/mega-batteri...

In the late 1970s I worked in a computer shop where we sold 4kb memory cards for £100 (£550 in today’s money). So… if those prices had held, the 24gb of main memory in the computer I bought today would have set me back £3,300,000,000! Exponentials are wild.

Useful comparison

Now that’s what I call a red heat pump! I love it when our customers ask us to really stretch the boundaries of what is possible. I think we are going to see a lot more wrapped heat pumps in future!

Shot, chaser Young men more likely to vote Green than Reform. Young men second most progressive group of any demographic. Combined right-wing vote barely bigger than Green vote alone for young men

Just look at what happened with solar investment - it’s astonishing. Solar has seen the most rapid investment growth, soaring from $142 billion in 2015 to a projected $441 billion this year.

This is great

Clearer charts of how there simply isn't much North Sea oil and gas left. It's gone. There are a handful of relatively tiny new fields that companies want to exploit (Cambo, Rosebank, Jackdaw) but hopefully the Finch decision will put paid to them and we can get on with offshore wind turbines

This is awesome...Scientists breathe new life into climate website after shutdown under Trump

Heat pumps are magical machines. Instead of combusting fossil fuels to generate heat they transport heat from the air, ground or water into your home. This reduces carbon emissions instantly by about 80% with the current electricity mix. It will be 100% by mid 2030s.

First full day of operating of my upgraded pv system. 28 off 515W panels split equally between the east and west roofs. 62kWh of electricity generated so far and it’s hanging in there generating over 850W at 19:30. Amazing.

Could anyone help me with an issue I have programming Arduino boards from a Mac? It’s been working for ages but I’ve suddenly got issues making a connection to the board.

Climbing a ladder with a 2 by 1.1m 26kg 510W pv panel on your shoulder. Rob makes it look easy. Only specialist gear is a padded cap! share.

I am so disappointed by the zappie charger. Right now it is blasting out 7.3kW whilst simultaneously telling me no charging will take place until I select a charging mode. There may be some nerdy explanation but it needs to be get simpler than this.

Another great Energy Transition Show with Chris Nelder! [Episode #253] – Bioenergy Illusions At 34 min into full episode xenetwork.org/ets/episodes... Chris Nelder (quoting a report): "Planting solar on your land, if you will, gives you 100 times more energy than using it to grow corn for fuel."

I’m really puzzled. We have just installed a twin 7kW Vaillant cascade with 500L cylinder in a substantial London home. What’s odd is the amount of energy used to heat hot water each day. Today in two sessions the Vaillant app reports 64kWh of hot water provided, or 230MJ.

The 'subsidy scheme' budget for Sizewell C is £54.6 billion ($73.7bn) That's about the same as the total for non-nuclear bit of GB Energy, National Wealth fund, & Carbon Capture and Storage combined (totalling £55.6bn) Just for one power station searchforuksubsidies.beis.gov.uk/scheme/?sche...

Astonishing (or not?) UK Labour govt will make exactly the same mistakes over nuclear power as Tories Steadily gulled into a bad project until they have no option but to agree an expensive deal And only publish the embarrassing details when it’s too late to alter them www.ft.com/content/d431...