After a terrible flood, you don't say it's too expensive to build new flood defences.
Britain’s vulnerability to gas cost all of us £40bn in the last energy crisis and we're facing another. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme costs just 1% of that - and is key to getting off gas.
Britain’s vulnerability to gas cost all of us £40bn in the last energy crisis and we're facing another. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme costs just 1% of that - and is key to getting off gas.
“Malevolent leaders” thousands of miles away with a grip on our energy bills. Perfect Halloween material, if only it were made up.
Tomorrow’s Budget decides the future of the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS), the government grant that knocks thousands off the cost of a heat pump. The value industrial policies Britain has, and the clearest way to loosen that grip.
In the @theipaper this morning, @g__j pointed to China’s boom in EV’s. In 2010, the government there gave people a hefty discount on electric cars and built the chargers to match. Early adopters drove costs down, and China now leads the world in EVs and batteries.
The BUS is doing the same for heating. Before it, around 200,000 UK homes had a heat pump. Now it’s over 600,000. Heat pumps used to be for posh renovations. Now they’re going into ordinary homes, and data from every Octopus heat pump shows heating bills 20 to 40% lower than gas. That’s the BUS delivering exactly what it promised, making smarter, cleaner, (and generally better) energy tech cheaper for everyone.
Every heat pump fitted makes the next one cheaper. And every home off gas is one less Putin can squeeze. The scariest thing this week would be stopping now.
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Greg Jackson retweeted
What’s the one thing you’ve never been asked in your life:
“What’s the ROI on a gas boiler”? 😂
“What’s the ROI on a gas boiler”? 😂
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Getting gas locally is good short term, but it won’t cut bills. Heat pumps can.
Hundreds and thousands will save on bills this winter with their heat pump (on avg, £230 a year on Cosy Octopus vs a gas boiler).
Hundreds and thousands will save on bills this winter with their heat pump (on avg, £230 a year on Cosy Octopus vs a gas boiler).
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You can check the facts online because we make our heat pump performance data public: octopus.energy/cosy-heat-pump…
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Greg Jackson retweeted
The new gas field isn’t going to bring down your bills.
Gas is bought & sold globally, so the reality is, fossil fuels controlled by dictators have Britain in a chokehold til we fully embrace gas-free driving & heating and cut the link between electricity and gas.
BUT, fwiw, getting e right move while we’re transitioning off it. It’s a bit cleaner and brings jobs and tax revenue to Britain.
Gas is bought & sold globally, so the reality is, fossil fuels controlled by dictators have Britain in a chokehold til we fully embrace gas-free driving & heating and cut the link between electricity and gas.
BUT, fwiw, getting e right move while we’re transitioning off it. It’s a bit cleaner and brings jobs and tax revenue to Britain.
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You can't run a system with millions of variable consumption and generation and storage devices the way you ran it when you had 150 fossil fuel generators and a handful of nukes.
It's not the new technology (wind, solar, batteries, EVs) that's the issue - it's the total failure to change the way we manage the system.
This is why locational wholesale market (which is automatically dramatically more flexible) was so powerful - and is increasingly used in the OECD. We need decentralised signals so the system self-optimises.
Octopus already processes 300,000 data points a second to do this for the many GW we control - but the brute force of the main system management just doesn't have this granularity.
It is increasingly urgent to reform our electricity system. These control room issues, the £50m spent balancing the system in a single day, the £3bn a year on curtailment, the prospect of £7-9bn a year of curtailment by 2029/2030.
It's all avoidable but not with the tools of yesterday
It's not the new technology (wind, solar, batteries, EVs) that's the issue - it's the total failure to change the way we manage the system.
This is why locational wholesale market (which is automatically dramatically more flexible) was so powerful - and is increasingly used in the OECD. We need decentralised signals so the system self-optimises.
Octopus already processes 300,000 data points a second to do this for the many GW we control - but the brute force of the main system management just doesn't have this granularity.
It is increasingly urgent to reform our electricity system. These control room issues, the £50m spent balancing the system in a single day, the £3bn a year on curtailment, the prospect of £7-9bn a year of curtailment by 2029/2030.
It's all avoidable but not with the tools of yesterday
It’s official: a legal investigation has found engineers in Britain’s electricity grid control room are stressed because renewables make it so hard to keep the lights on. And when they raise concerns, managers won’t listen - they only want “good news”
thetimes.com/article/413d54…
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37% of new trucks sold in China are now electric. They’re not little vans - they’re 49 tons. Unaffected by diesel prices. Simply not held back by the fossil fuel lobby.
This is an extraordinary development. Only a few years ago, the car makers were saying it would not be impossible in the near future to make electric trucks. We must never underestimate the extent to which vested interest is putting the brakes on the Climate revolution
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And then there is total wholesomeness … ❤️ 😋
@OctopusEnergy We used our accrued Happy Hours to cook an excellent roast lunch using meat sourced from an independent butcher. It made a good start to the week of my birthday. Thank you.
Roast belly pork, potatoes, honey glazed carrot, runner beans and Tenderstem broccoli, gravy
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Thank you @IainDale for having me on your panel tonight, and to your panellists @larabirdsnp @DLumsden_MP, @ToniaAntoniazzi for such civilised and grown up debate.
And another highlight… discovering Ma Eum round the corner from your studio for absolutely delicious dinner and a spot of work!
And another highlight… discovering Ma Eum round the corner from your studio for absolutely delicious dinner and a spot of work!
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A giant octopus appeared on the beach during the eclipse 😮
@lunatangerine26 please drop me a DM - I’d like to send you a little something for your efforts!
@lunatangerine26 please drop me a DM - I’d like to send you a little something for your efforts!
Enjoyed our powering down session watching the #OctoEclipse - made sure Constantine the Octopus had her eclipse glasses on ready! @OctopusEnergy
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We don’t always get it right first time - but we’ll always try to sort when there’s an issue
And yes - our engineers are top class ❤️
And yes - our engineers are top class ❤️
@g__j Great by Octopus, their own engineer came (instead of subcontractor) re-wired my Ohme EV charger, it's now not seen as load by home battery & the solar boost feature now works i can choose to charge through excess solar, +will get EIC cert
Great result after I stood for my rights
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Greg Jackson retweeted
TOTAL ECLIPSE 🌚🌞 FREE ELECTRICITY?!
Class is in session. Octoplus members: use less electricity 6-8pm Wed 12th Aug (solar eclipse) and get an HOUR of FREE POWER on Sunday.*
👇🧵 Sign up via link below
*Terms apply. Up to 16kWh free (enough to light a stadium).
Class is in session. Octoplus members: use less electricity 6-8pm Wed 12th Aug (solar eclipse) and get an HOUR of FREE POWER on Sunday.*
👇🧵 Sign up via link below
*Terms apply. Up to 16kWh free (enough to light a stadium).
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Greg Jackson retweeted
That popular graph suggesting Europe has actually had a good year for wildfires is misleading
- data encompass Russia, including Siberia
- can include fires deliberately lit to manage cropland
- area burned by wildfires across EU is second only to 2022
carbonbrief.org/factcheck-no-e…
- data encompass Russia, including Siberia
- can include fires deliberately lit to manage cropland
- area burned by wildfires across EU is second only to 2022
carbonbrief.org/factcheck-no-e…
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Tim is right, and this is - as ever from Tim - a superbly written article.
Climate change is a matter of fact, and the solutions are here.
Whether you’re left wing or right wing doesn’t change that.
And the solutions are increasingly economically better than the fossil fuel alternatives.
Indeed, the capitalist case for action is overwhelmingly compelling. What’s holding us back- or making it expensive- are incumbents and incumbent thinking, now being joined by frankly bizarre ideology.
Solar is the cheapest power on the planet. Onshore wind bonkers cheap. It’s undoubtedly the case that EVs are the future. Costs falling (the UK’s cheapest new car is an EV…) Heatpumps are outstanding for most homes.
One of my most interesting meetings was with the Net Zero Scrutiny Group discussing how a freer market in electricity could use these technologies to drive down energy costs.
Yet we see incumbents lobbying against these - trying to roll back EV targets and claiming we’ll have hydrogen instead of heatpumps. Telling us the solution to fossil fuel crises is more fossil fuels.
They resist the changes we need to the market to make renewables slash costs and deny the very evidence in front of their eyes on both climate and technology.
Wildfires? “Arson and woke land management” Floods? “Dam removals. Or was it too many dams?” melting glaciers? “Sun spots. Just weather”. Excess O2? “It’s just 0.04% and it’s good for plants” Extreme temperatures? “Just weather”
Climate models predicted all of them. A wise person once told me that when people bring a different explanation to every bit of the argument, there’s usually something else.
Similarly with solutions. Solar panels? “Plastering the land” and “threatening food security”. Nonsense - they take up 1/3 the land of golf courses and nature loves living under them. Wind farms “kill birds”. Have you seen how many cats kill, buildings, cars? Wind farms are vanishingly low on the list.
Or we could do as Tim says. See what’s going on, see the huge opportunity of the solutions and embrace it.
Climate change is a matter of fact, and the solutions are here.
Whether you’re left wing or right wing doesn’t change that.
And the solutions are increasingly economically better than the fossil fuel alternatives.
Indeed, the capitalist case for action is overwhelmingly compelling. What’s holding us back- or making it expensive- are incumbents and incumbent thinking, now being joined by frankly bizarre ideology.
Solar is the cheapest power on the planet. Onshore wind bonkers cheap. It’s undoubtedly the case that EVs are the future. Costs falling (the UK’s cheapest new car is an EV…) Heatpumps are outstanding for most homes.
One of my most interesting meetings was with the Net Zero Scrutiny Group discussing how a freer market in electricity could use these technologies to drive down energy costs.
Yet we see incumbents lobbying against these - trying to roll back EV targets and claiming we’ll have hydrogen instead of heatpumps. Telling us the solution to fossil fuel crises is more fossil fuels.
They resist the changes we need to the market to make renewables slash costs and deny the very evidence in front of their eyes on both climate and technology.
Wildfires? “Arson and woke land management” Floods? “Dam removals. Or was it too many dams?” melting glaciers? “Sun spots. Just weather”. Excess O2? “It’s just 0.04% and it’s good for plants” Extreme temperatures? “Just weather”
Climate models predicted all of them. A wise person once told me that when people bring a different explanation to every bit of the argument, there’s usually something else.
Similarly with solutions. Solar panels? “Plastering the land” and “threatening food security”. Nonsense - they take up 1/3 the land of golf courses and nature loves living under them. Wind farms “kill birds”. Have you seen how many cats kill, buildings, cars? Wind farms are vanishingly low on the list.
Or we could do as Tim says. See what’s going on, see the huge opportunity of the solutions and embrace it.
Column: "climate change is real and the Right needs to get serious about it,"
It's killing everything we claim to love - landscape, tradition, millions of poor chickens - so why do some conservatives still call it a hoax?!
telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/07/2…
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I speak a lot about the need for Smart Grids and urgent reform of our electricity system. Here's why it's so critical:
According to the brilliant @energy_said our grid utilisation has fallen from 56% to 27% (!!)
YET we are planning to spend £100-£200bn on new grid and network.
s which are 73% empty and then ordering more planes instead of using every tool in the box to fill them?
Without urgent re-thinking, we risk committing a whole generation to even higher electricity bills, killing the energy transition back by making electrification too expensive and worsening the prospects of British industry, data centers etc.
According to the brilliant @energy_said our grid utilisation has fallen from 56% to 27% (!!)
YET we are planning to spend £100-£200bn on new grid and network.
s which are 73% empty and then ordering more planes instead of using every tool in the box to fill them?
Without urgent re-thinking, we risk committing a whole generation to even higher electricity bills, killing the energy transition back by making electrification too expensive and worsening the prospects of British industry, data centers etc.
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RT @concorde_204: @OctopusEnergy @g__j Was always a bit apprehensive about having Smart Meters due to space constraints. Anyway took plunge…
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