One of the challenges of renewable energy is matching demand to supply. In other words, when it’s sunny and windy, more energy is generated than is required, at certain points in the day. This can be stored for later use, but this infrastructure is expensive and can take a long time to provision. An alternative…
We had solar panels installed at the start of February but we’re still waiting for the accompanying battery to arrive. I put together this Home Assistant dashboard for our Kindle Fire kiosk tablet in the kitchen at home, so we could quickly spot excess solar production (and turn on the washing machine!) – but also…
Intelligent Octopus is one of Octopus Energy’s tariffs designed for EVs. Owners allow Octopus to decide when their car is going to charge, and get a low rate (7.5p/kWh) from 23:30 to 05:30 – and any other times that Octopus chooses to charge the car. This low rate applies to all consumption (not just car…
The UK experienced its hottest temperatures on record on Monday and Tuesday last week (18 and 19 July 2022), exceeding 40°C for the first time in several parts of England. This seemed far-fetched even a couple weeks ago – but here we are, and here we appear to be, until we take radical steps to…
We were the first generation to grow up with computers at home. Iain got one first – a BBC Micro, just as we were leaving primary school, but many of my friends got BBCs, Spectrums and Commodore 64s for Christmas 1983. Although 1984 has significance in the history of computing in other ways, it was…