Whatever place, that was robbery.

And while they are at it, put a battery in too.

Could have been me. I’ve been working on this as a hobby for over five years yers since we got solar panels, EV and a dedicated battery for storage.

Smarter devices support demand side response, which is welcome to make the grid more efficient. A good local energy-efficient solution includes in my experience three key ingredients.

First you need local energy storage to allow for extra flexibility to handle life’s ebbs and flows. This could be an EV or dedicated storage battery, which can be charged when electricity is abundant, and discharged when supply is tight and something energy hungry needs doing.

Second the grid side will not know when I’m planning to do something energy hungry, or when I want the EV battery full instead of the usual 80% charge. Therefore some way of providing input is needed. It might be possible to learn reasonable local demand forecast models reflecting local behaviour patterns, but I’m not yet convinced about this and tend to trust human guidance more.

Third you need intelligent control to respond to grid signals (e.g. price changes) and combine those with local inputs and any local consumption and production (e.g. from solar panels or micro wind turbines) forecasts.

Energy companies will of course want to have the intelligent control in their hands as it creates them price arbitrage. For majority of consumers that will be the best solution. Some of us will not necessarily want to give them that control and prefer a local solution.

I hope the water didn’t cause much damage.

It was great to have the long weekend. I’m beginning to think that every weekend should be four days!

My wife gave the BBQ a thorough Spring clean while I focused on unscheduled lawnmower maintenance. First BBQ in warm weather is always a treat, and the lawnmower started with first pull, so that was nice.

I think so. But then again, I had read the books beforehand, which made it easier to get going.

I quite like the Apple TV adaptation of Slow Horses. Gary Oldman as Jackson Lamb is simply brilliant.

If it’s in a lorry, is it parked? That is, if the lorry isn’t parked. This is confusing.

That sounds like a lot of complication for a humble lawnmower.

Cuts still well enough, maybe next Spring.

I’ve been working a new roofed decking where BBQ and Ooni pizza oven will go. I bought the pizza oven as a bit of an impulse thing and didn’t really think where it will go, so now I have a building project to deal with.

Yesterday the weather was great so I just kept going for far too long for my age. It turns out roofing in April sunshine is exhausting and seemingly requires muscles I don’t appear to be using that often. On the bright side I did not burn myself as I slapped plenty of SPF 50 on.

I also did a good few walks with our dogs and explored new forrest paths we haven’t been to before. We knew of them but never got round going there.

I’d call this a very good week.

And totally no sore muscles tomorrow morning.

I need to complete the deck first…

I forgot suncream the other day. I will not make that mistake again. Until next Spring, anyway.

Working on a deck in back garden. Looks like the weather will be favourable.

I think you nailed it, a tempting target for spare milkshakes.

Looks like the logical outcome when (well, hopefully if) the surveillance capitalism fully takes over the Government.

TIL a new term that I shall be using.

True, and you are probably not putting anywhere near enough salt to the water.