Firstly some sad news - we are shutting down DevicePilot. Over 7 years we’ve helped customers across a range of industries to make their connected devices deliver truly great service levels, but ultimately couldn’t find enough of these customers to make our business model work. My huge thanks to all the lovely people who have supported us along the way: our investors, our customers, our advisors and most of all our team who have delivered a consistently excellent customer experience. If you’re interested in our IP then please get in touch.

Smart Energy

• Surprising smart energy facts to start the year:
• In 2022 US heat pumps outsold fossil-fuel furnaces.
• High prices and warm weather have driven European gas use at the start of 2023 to -38% of its 5-year average.
• New UK grid half-hourly record: 87% renewables (66% wind + 19% nuclear)
• And on average in past month wind provided 44% of UK electricity.
• UK Govt on energy
• Environmental Audit Committee concludes that we need “war effort” mobilisation to increase efficiency, add PV and stop licensing fossil fuels
• “Mission Zero”, the net zero review commissioned by momentary PM Liz Truss, has concluded we should go even faster than planned
• Rebound effect: A 12y study of 55k homes by Cambridge University uncovered a significant “rebound effect” two years after improving insulation: occupants take most of the benefit as comfort, with energy savings falling to sub-2%. However, they did find sensitivity to energy price, so I hope they keep the study going through these high-cost times. There’s nothing wrong with making homes comfortable - and then further gains can all be savings, if price remains high-enough to motivate reasonable behaviour (which it will).
• 1.5m tonnes of CO2 a year captured by 2027? First UK plant approved.
• Sexy charts:
• How France’s predominantly nuclear generation delivers very low CO2 grid intensity.
• CO2 trajectory of various countries across the world seemingly showing a clear pattern of CO2 abatement for the more developed ones.
• Nuclear
• Substantial new nuclear coming on line next year, especially in India. Though note that their total installed capacity is a massive 403GW (50% of it coal)
• Interesting idea: Using a SMR to retrofit coal power stations to nukes
• Making energy pricing more localised, with Locational Marginal Pricing 
• How the UK could (and likely will) by 2030 require gas for only 1% of electricity generation.
• A UK butcher’s shop sells pies unbaked to avoid a 4x energy bill. False economy from a systems perspective as it must be more efficient to cook food in bulk.
• My self-build home battery system (Pylon batteries + Sofar inverter, 12kWh effective, £6k) has now been operating for half a year with a datalogger, from midsummer to midwinter, and here’s the maths:
• on track to pay back in ~4.4 years, at today’s prices
• 82% of the financial benefit comes from shifting cheap off-peak so I can avoid using expensive on-peak electricity, with the remaining 18% from storing excess PV (otherwise spilled to grid).
• My house is effectively off-grid for the whole of the on-peak period (04:30-00:30) except on overcast winter days where the lack of sunshine means the battery goes flat around 6pm and the house starts to import.
• Behaviour change: When considering an energy-intensive task, instead of thinking “is it sunny right now?” we now ask “is it a sunny day today in general, even if not right now?”.
• Next step: +7kW more PV! Then probably more batteries.

EV

• Great EV innovation “duet” between Robert Llewellyn and Sandy Munro, discussing how V2G-ready is becoming the norm (Tesla as the exception for now).
• An analysis of 139 European smart charging tariffs suggests 6 approaches for promoting smart EV charging
• “A metric arse-load of shiny new models” of EV are to be launched this year - great roundup. Must be more than 50 there, I lost count.
• As Tesla roll out more sophisticated reporting on charging costs, they claim vehicle owners saved >$2bn charging in 2022.
• Gotta love a Learning Curve: EV batteries cost falls by 98% since 1991.
• With urban delivery trucks emitting 5x more CO2 than long-haul, Tevva UK launches its 7.5t truck.

IoT

• “Smart Appliances could stop working after 2 years”: Of 119 connected-product brands surveyed by Which magazine, less than half could articulate a coherent support strategy.

I'm planning one final newsletter in February before we shut down in March... so until then,

-Pilgrim