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The Great British heat annuity
'Heat or eat' is back, and No.10's answer is a block tariff. Something bolder: Great British Energy installs the heat pump against the value of the home…
Aug 17
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Ben
2
What is demand, exactly?
Britain publishes several numbers for how much electricity it is using. None of them measures quite what you would think, and a growing share of what…
Aug 13
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Ben
1
Younger batteries think older solar is a cheap date
Or cheap rent / grid queue jumping? What does storage really want from Britain's solar farms?
Aug 10
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Ben
2
Britain's best start to a year for wind and sun — and the 6.5 TWh we threw away
GB wind and solar both set year-to-date records in 2026. Counting them properly means adding back embedded generation, adding back curtailment, and not…
Aug 6
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Ben
4
Not all CfDs are created equal
Britain's contracts for difference paid out £1.37bn in the first half of 2026. The average tells you almost nothing about any of it.
Aug 3
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Ben
3
1
July 2026
Voluntary Frequency Response (VFR)
A request for comments, before I write any code: one rule to make a home battery a good grid citizen
Jul 31
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Ben
6
9
2
Europe's hydro drought has moved north
Reservoirs are near decade lows in the Nordics and decade highs in Iberia — 2026 is 2022 turned upside down, and prices are following the water
Jul 29
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Ben
1
Blame it on the sunshine
When the frequency broke on 23 June, demand was running above NESO's forecast. Air conditioning and AI cooling were blamed — five summers of settlement…
Jul 29
•
Ben
1
1
Don't Rush to Buy Plug-in Solar
Plug-in solar is finally legal — and still the wrong thing to buy. The battery is the story, and it's waiting on the regulator, not the engineers.
Jul 27
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Ben
2
Grid Supply Point Archetypes
The grid was built to flow top-down. A countryside revolution is trifurcating demand from the perspective of grid operators
Jul 23
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Ben
4
The Night France Saved the British Grid
Inside the control-room nightmare of 23 June: the day Britain's grid ran out of margin — and was saved by a phone call
Jul 20
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Ben
45
4
6
How I regret my heat pump lacks air conditioning
…and how air-to-water heat pumps could bounce back against heatwaves
Jul 17
•
Ben
11
6
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