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Just why is it so hard to subsidise Drax?
Three subsidies, one power station, and a fix that is finally clever — third time lucky?
Jun 11
•
Ben
1
The pumped storage that doesn't need a mountain
Visiting RheEnergise's High-Density Hydro rig on Dartmoor
Jun 5
•
Ben
2
1
The subsidy that slowed the transition
How the Renewables Obligation became a brake on the electrification it was meant to enable.
Jun 2
•
Ben
2
May 2026
Energy bills are going up £30. Not £221.
A walking tour through what today’s cap update actually says — the annualisation, the regulated charges at a record high, the new levy, and the…
May 28
•
Ben
Invite your friends to read dispatches.kilowatts.io
Thank you for reading dispatches.kilowatts.io — your support allows me to keep doing this work.
May 26
•
Ben
From £1m to £7m: how solar made the grid so much more expensive to balance on hot days.
You'd expect lots of summer PV to make sunny days easy for the grid. Instead, balancing them costs seven times more than it did in 2017 — and consumers…
May 26
•
Ben
1
Why is Westminster paying Amazon and Google to fix network constraints?
Time to rethink Scotland's heatpump rollout, or regional pricing instead?
May 21
•
Ben
Heat pumps age like Bordeaux. PV like Beaujolais Nouveau.
712 heat pumps, three winters, and the cold-snap risk that arrives with the next million installs.
May 17
•
Ben
Heatpump Mythbusting
What I learnt crunching 20.5m datapoints from 730 heatpumps on HeatpumpMonitor.org
May 14
•
Ben
5
1
Should we scrap Feed in Tariffs?
The Boomer generation of PV FiTs were installed in 2011-2
May 12
•
Ben
Less headroom, idling, gas and emissions. More insurance?
GB's spinning thermal headroom is down 73% in nine years. Why it matters. And the two ways batteries are unlocking it.
May 11
•
Ben
1
A solar MW in the UK now earns more than one in Spain
TLDR - it's not really due to the Iran war, or the recent sunshine!
May 6
•
Ben
1
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