iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Replacing some 5 year old Screwfix LED light bulbs (bottom of pic), with their 2026 equivalents (top of pic) Lots of info on the packets, but whereabouts is the most important bit?

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Also of note, in September 2022 electricity was cheaper overnight than during the daytime. It's the other way round now, shows how much solar has been added in 4 years!

Average Agile price by half hour 2022 September

Average Agile price by half hour 2026 September 1-22

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Something big happening on the Dundee waterfront! Inch Cape turbines arriving for assembly, Vestas 15MW www.inchcapewind.com/inch-cape-fo...

https://www.inchcapewind.com/inch-cape-focus-turns-to-dundee-and-turbines/

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Great to see these battery trains, which will run electric over the Pennines and then on battery out to the Yorkshire coast towns. Avoids using diesel on the quieter lines that haven't been electrified yet. But don't understand all the hype that these will be a 'UK first' when delivered in 2034.

bbc.co.uk

Is battery power the future of the UK's rail network?

New battery-powered trains to be built by Alstom may lead the way for a new electric future of rail travel.

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

We are doing, that's the problem. Several big power lines in N Scotland are shut down while they are being upgraded to 400kV. It's like upgrading a motorway or railway, if we want the extra capacity then we have to put up with years of roadworks and delays while building it!

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Just got served this solar advert, showing their map of UK and Ireland Appropriately from the company called 'Outbrain', though posing as the Independent newspaper's website Whatever happened to 'legal, decent, honest and truthful' being the legal minimum for adverts?

The Eco Experts advert for solar provided by 'Outbrain'

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 17/08/2026

So tomorrow is the end of the 3-month window that Ofgem use to determine the UK energy price cap from October onwards. Not looking good, the futures price for electricity has got a lot more expensive in the last three months than it was in the previous three.

https://www.ice.com/products/20799523/UK-Peak-Electricity-Future-Gregorian/data?marketId=6796177&span=2

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

I genuinely don't plan family walking holidays around energy infrastructure. But here's Dinorwig upper reservoir seen from Carnedd Filian

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

"The London Strategic Heat Main will transport low carbon heat and potentially cooling, initially from anchor heat sources at Riverside Campus, located in Belvedere, in.. Bexley, to areas of high heat demand across London." nsip-documents.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/published-do...

https://nsip-documents.planninginspectorate.gov.uk/published-documents/EN0710009-000010-Scoping%20Report%20-%20Volume%201.pdf

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 28/06/2026

I remember when being actually paid money to use more electricity was surprising, weird, noteworthy, we had discussions about who was going to bake cakes or charge the car. That was like, last year or something Now it's just... normal 😎 bsky.app/profile/ener...

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Ed Porter @edporter.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

The long-awaited LDES results are here - the "minded to" projects are below. 5 quick takes: 1) Lithium going far beyond 8 hours, that debate must surely be dead now.

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Ed Porter @edporter.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

Great Britain: fleet-wide battery cycling has fallen about 15% since early 2025, but that average hides a split. One-hour batteries lean on frequency response for availability income and now cycle around 0.6 times a day. Two-hour units pair it with wholesale and re-trade, holding near one cycle.

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

It's 2026 and Ofgem are still telling people to buy halogen and CFL lights ?!? Can you even still buy those any more?

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

The new bill for electricity after July is actually _less_ than the present April bill, because the fall in consumption has more than compensated for the rise in unit rates! electric bill component: April £796 for 2700kWh July £783 for 2500kWh (For London - costs more in the North!)

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2026-05/Energy-price-cap-levels-1-July-to-30-September-2026.pdf

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

Michael de Podesta found his aircon usage in London correlates well with days when his PV generates plenty of power to run it. The aircon is still needed after the sun goes down, so PV energy stored in his home battery is used to keep it running.

protonsforbreakfast.wordpress.com

PV and AC

Friends, we are just reaching the time of year when we will begin to use our air conditioning system. Of course this use should ideally all be covered by our solar PV generation, but I just wondere…

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

April 2025: first time ever that GB solar generated over 12 GW onto the grid April 2026: seven days *in a row* that solar generated over 12 GW

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 23/04/2026

If anyone else with dodgy eyesight has found that today's Bluesky update has disallowed pinch-to-zoom: Chrome > Settings > Accessibility > Force Enable Zoom

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 22/04/2026

Wow that's a lot of not gas

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 20/04/2026

Ofgem's consultation on how electricity transmission might be charged based on location, after Zonal pricing was dropped NESO are also consulting, and perhaps DESNZ will launch theirs tomorrow! www.ofgem.gov.uk/call-for-inp...

Options for zonal locational charges - ofgem

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/call-for-input/locational-charges-and-regulatory-siting-levers-under-reformed-national-pricing

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

Got no horse in this race but the physics of cooling satellite data centres are interesting, a discussion here. My fagpackets seem to match up with some of the actual experts! Every kW of sunshine that lands on a satellite has to be reradiated, this has been solved for small satellites since 1957.

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 25/01/2026

Crazy how many spells of 20-21 GW wind power we had this January. Think it's about the ninth time and not the end of the month yet! This would have been a new record only a couple of years ago, and now it quietly just keeps happening.

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 17/01/2026

Air temperatures ⁰C in our hallway. Warm air is flowing rightwards along the ceiling from the kitchen (been baking) and exchanging with cool air flowing leftwards at floor level from the stairwell. The house thermostat is set at 20 and is trying to make any kind of sense of all this.

Air temperatures in degrees C at different heights in the hallway. Thermostat is seeing 20.2 Deg C.

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Christian Odendahl @codendahl.bsky.social · 15/01/2026

Saw this chart from Ben Watts (his real name, I think) about different time profiles of European electricity consumption. Fun. www.linkedin.com/in/kilowatts/

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

If they think explaining a curved-top wing is difficult, their minds will be blown by symmetrical keels on boats! The same shape on both sides, yet creates lift so the boat doesn't drift sideways. All that Bernoulli mumbling about bigger distances and velocities over the curved side - nope!

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Jenny Chase @solarchase.bsky.social · 20/10/2025

21. Everyone is defining long-duration storage technology wrong. It's not about 6 or 8 hours — you can do that with lithium-ion and probably would — it's about having the capex to add more GWh of capacity decoupled from the capex of adding more GW.

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 14/08/2025

Cottam coal power station demolished today (the cooling towers). Will be replaced by a solar farm, using the same grid connection.

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 07/08/2025

UK energy flow chart 2024 assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6887aa...

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6887aa04be2291b14d11b01d/Energy_Flow_Chart_TWh_2024.pdf

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 28/04/2025

So yesterday was sunny and windy and prices were very negative, -£30/MWh. Last night and today, prices went high again +£80. We badly needed a few hours storage. But our 2.7 GW existing PSH fleet hardly reacted! 0.5 GW maximum. (Dark blue line on chart) Why were they not busy pumping and storing?

Graph from iamkate of interconnectors and pumped storage (dark blue) showing maximum storage was 0.5GW and production 0.3GW.

Prices from iamkate showing negative -£30 in the afternoon of 27th April and positive £80-100 in the evening and next morning

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Stephen Jarvis @stephenjarvis.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

The UK currently has 3GW of pumped storage capacity, but NESO (the system operator) expects this to more than triple to 10GW by 2035. In fact, by my count there is already 7GW of capacity that has begun the permitting process, and 5GW of this has now received planning consent. (3/9)

Table of the operational and proposed pumped storage hydro projects in the UK. There are four operational projects built between 1961 and 1983. A further nine projects have now applied for planning permission and six have received approval (not including the most recent one already mentioned). Almost all the new projects are in Scotland.

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

Renewables plus Nuclear producing 102% of GB demand ! Plus another 5% gas. The excess 7% is being pumped into storage and exported to Ireland and Norway. grid.iamkate.com

https://grid.iamkate.com/

Demand 30.6GW

Fossil fuels 1.7GW

Renewables27.2GW

Other sources 4.1GW

Transfers -2.4GW

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 19/03/2025

"Adding a co-located 4-hour battery of 6.8GW capacity to ... the 8.6GW tidal barrage... reduced the negative impact on constraints costs" www.severncommission.co.uk/final-recomm... A multi-GW pulse of power at inconvenient times of day is one of the problems with both tidal and PV - same solution?

severncommission.co.uk

Final Recommendations - Severn Estuary Commission

Introduction The Severn Estuary Commission was established in March 2024 by the Western Gateway Partnership to assess the feasibility of tidal range energy generation in the Severn Estuary. After a y...

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 12/03/2025

Sorry to see this dumped. On buying a home (new or old) you'd have been given 2 or 3 years to remove the gas boiler and fit something else. The sale price of the home would reflect this. Change of ownership seems like a great time to change central heating. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

bbc.co.uk

Scottish government scraps green heating plans for new homes

Acting net-zero secretary Gillian Martin told MSPs the legislation, drafted by the Scottish Greens, would

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

Good for England to do this, but please learn from the implementation debacle in Scotland - the Scot DRS collapsed. Pity it doesn't include glass bottles, plastic food trays, food tins or tetrapak, and is 'recycle' not 'reuse'. Beware if this is intended to replace household recycling collections!

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 18/01/2025

Dedicated heat pumps have been built for 200+ degrees C. A steam turbine cycle is just a heat pump running in reverse, they get up to 600 degC, so the building blocks exist to go that hot. Gas turbines run at 1500+ deg, maybe a future HP will too? Sodium vapour cycle? If there's an application.

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 19/01/2025

Love your substack, but there's a public misunderstanding. Most people are unaware that solar PV is already required on 0.4 of the roof of new homes since 2022 AD L1, same in FHS. Too arcane for most, so politicians like parliamentary stunts that exploit this, rather than explaining the law.

Screenshot from FHS notional building spec, showing solar PV required on 0.4 of the roof of houses, and pro rata for flats.

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 21/01/2025

I don't think we all appreciate just how much more expensive fossil fuels are in Europe than in the US since '22 In Europe switching generation from imported gas to homegrown renewables makes our bills cheaper and more stable. In the US, not so, there's a gas surplus because of shale/fracking.

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Dan Grey @dangrey.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

This will be (another) new record!

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 27/11/2024

UK has had Economy 7 and 10 tariffs since 1978. 7 hours of cheaper electricity overnight, when there was lower demand. Typically hard-wired to heaters and hot water tanks. Search says that ~3 million customers are still on these tariffs. Time of Use and DSR are not newfangled ideas!

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 28/11/2024

This is a key point. The whole idea of renewables is to build enough for the days when it's not very windy. Then when it is super-windy you just don't need to use them all. The language of "curtailment" is made to sound like a bad thing, but actually it's good to have more than can be used.

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

The 200th anniversary this year of Carnot's publication... Heat pumps are not a new idea! His concept of 'reversibility' is still at the heart of the 2nd Law. And he predicted that low flow temperatures would give the best CoP. books.google.co.uk/books?id=QX9...

books.google.co.uk

Réflexions sur la puissance motrice du feu et sur les machines propres à développer cette puissance

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

The CIBSE Thermal Admittance method combines the effusivity of the wall or floor material, with the convection and radiation of the air. cibsejournal.com/cpd/modules/... The first 25-100mm damps out day-night cycles. Seasonal cycles go much deeper.

cibsejournal.com

Module 48: Simple thermal analysis for buildings

This module explores the parameters required to assess the relative thermal performance of the building fabric

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

PV is already the cheapest power source in the UK, as bid in recent AR6 auction. PV was pre-sold at £50.06/MWh for delivery in 2026, slightly cheaper than onshore wind £50.90, offshore wind £58.87, tidal stream £172. Previously nuclear was £92.50. Gas was ~£100 today.

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

a 5 minute x 11kW = 30L shower takes 5 mins extra either side for drying and dressing. If a store can reheat 30L in 15 mins, it can cope with back to back showers. 15mins x 5kW is > 5mins x 11kW The graph shows the store reheating in ~15mins after each shower

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WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 11/11/2024

What's the capacity factor for UK gas? 98 TWh generated ÷ 27GW capacity ÷ 8760hoursperyear = 41% > Capacity factor for gas is the same as for offshore wind. Capacity factors for each source of electricity (2021 data) en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacit...

en.m.wikipedia.org

Capacity factor - Wikipedia

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