- Essays··10 min read
The Invisible Optimisation Tax
Dynamic electricity tariffs like Agile Octopus offer genuine grid benefits — and quietly reassign the utility's demand-response coordination work to the household, unpaid. Responding to half-hourly price signals requires daily monitoring, scheduling, and appliance management that the pricing brochure does not cost out. The attention this demands is not free; it is merely unpriced, and the resulting savings accrue unevenly across household types.
energy-policydynamic-pricingdemand-responseconsumer-protectionRead - Essays··13 min read
Sunday Essay · The Other Energy Curve
Two energy curves dominate 2026. The first is what AI does to the grid, and it owns the front page. The second is what AI does for the grid, and it is where the real policy and investment work belongs now.
ai-and-energydata-centre-demandmethane-detectiongeothermalRead - Essays··7 min read
field notes: the data centre learns to flinch
The demos are real and the peer review is real. What's unproven is whether a utility planner will write a 500 MW flexible load into a resource-adequacy filing and sleep at night. The tariffs will decide this before the silicon does.
energy-aidata-centresgrid-flexibilitydemand-responseRead