ESDA: Energy Systems - W1 - WEO 2017

Sun, Sep 30, 2018

Reading time: 4.5 minutes The World Energy Outlook (WEO) is the flagship product of the International Energy Agency (IEA), and one of the most influential energy models worldwide; used by governments, corporations and institutions to assess the changing energy landscape and consider how the future will evolve. In its own words, “the gold standard of energy analysis”. It is a formidable effort and hugely comprehensive. I will consider the executive summary from WEO 2017, briefly outline the IEA scenarios offered, detail the major energy trends, and question whether the IEA’s presentation of its scenarios could be improved.…more

Starting a Masters course, ESDA @ UCL

Sat, Sep 22, 2018

I am very excited to be joining the brand new Energy Systems and Data Analytics (ESDA) Masters course at UCL in the next few weeks. I’m looking to build on my existing skills and develop my learning across the course areas; from energy systems to transport and the built environment. As soon as I saw the course ad tweeted out by UCL Energy Institute I was hooked. I’ve been working in and around energy and climate change since 2010 across several policy areas and there has been a consistent need for data driven analysis and evaluation.…more

Playing with pts.js

Thu, Aug 9, 2018

I just noticed Pts, a very shiny looking design and graphics library in typescript and wanted to play. Since finding @beesandbombs and his beautiful animations I've been looking forward to trying to make some fun things with P5 - and now Pts. So, let's just get the example running: #hello { width:80vw; max-width: 600px; height:80vw; max-height:600px; display:block; margin: 20px; } (function(){ Pts.namespace( this ); // add Pts into scope if needed var demoID = "…more

Home Electricity Monitoring with EmonPi

Sat, Jul 28, 2018

After a long hiatus I’ve rebooted the home electricity monitoring system: an EmonTx unit with a sensor round the live cable out of our main electricity meter, sending data to a raspberry pi hat on a pi running EmonCMS. This gives a data reading every 10 seconds (in theory - mine is dropping some at present), so you can get a lovely dashboard like this: The EmonCMS home electricity use dashboard

Coal power in the EU

Sun, Feb 25, 2018

In December 2017 I co-authored a report with Matt Gray at Carbon Tracker entitled “Lignite of the Living Dead: Below 2°C scenario and strategy analysis for EU coal power investors”. We found that over half of currently operating coal plants in the EU are losing money, and with some reasonable assumptions around the carbon price and the costs of compliance with new tighter air pollution limits, 97% would be unprofitable by 2030.…more

Coal power in the USA

Sat, Feb 24, 2018

The first report I co-authored at Carbon Tracker with Matt Gray was called No Country for Coal Gen– Below 2°C and regulatory risk for US coal power owners. We addressed the trends affecting the sector and developed an asset-level phase-out model for coal plants suitable to meet the aims of the Paris Agreement. We examined how the regulatory framework supports increasingly uncompetitive coal power, and how a phase-out could save US consumers money.…more

Scoring MEPs in the European Parliament

Wed, Mar 30, 2016

Curated voting data, visualising MEP groupings, scoring your local MEP It began at a hackathon weekend in Brussels, focusing on European democracy ahead of the 2015 elections. Three of us pulled together a basic project that gave each MEP a score in one policy area, based on a selection of votes made in the European Parliament. It ended up as Score-Ep.org, with input from 5 different campaign groups scoring MEPs from all European countries on climate change, fracking, GM crops, the Arms Trade and LGBT Issues.…more

Small steps to an autonomous future

Wed, Mar 30, 2016

Summary: Every morning my lights turn themselves on, along with my amplifier which begins playing a random song off my wake up playlist. My current setup is a Raspberry Pi B+ with a HiFiBerry DAC+. The pi runs Home Assistant for home automation (lights, plugs, scripts), with Mopidy and Mopify providing the music and user interface. My home assistant dashboard looks like this: Blackstock Home Assistant While the pi looks like this:…more