Earth Notes: On Website Technicals (2026-02)

We are getting noticeably more sunshine this month, which means the batteries are getting used and are covering a little demand from 16:00 onwards already.

Various scripts have already been tweaked and tuned to use less CoP 1 DHW by diversion (and boost), and to better shape net grid demand to match SSES [govUK2024electricity] [govUK2025ESA]. The heat pump load profile work is part of that. The mild anti-herding improvements around the edges of STOP mode are too. 16WW's typical ~1kW grid-friendly load-adjustment capacity is not going to be the saviour of the GB grid, but should help just a tiny bit!

One motivator for this work is to leave a larger net generation surplus so that our energy carbon footprint will stay negative in less good years. I hear that HMRC wants to treat anything over 20% surplus as taxable 'profit', though I hope that several years at once can be taken into consideration, and that our FiTs may be immune. I brought up this potential issue with the Energy Minister (Ed Davey) when he visited well over a decade ago! That magic 120% is also the level at which Octopus' Zero Bills tariff can work.