Family in garden with battewry
Energy

Battery Buyer’s Guide — Prices Have Collapsed

There’s a quiet revolution rumbling beneath the surface of the global energy market — and no, it’s not just the hum of your neighbour’s Tesla Powerwall on a sunny day. It’s the plummeting price of off-grid batteries, triggered not by some technological breakthrough or eco-angelic alignment of incentives, but by a good old-fashioned geopolitical pile-up: China’s battery dumping spree.

Yes, in a move that would make a Bond villain blush, Chinese battery manufacturers — faced with tariffs and trade walls from the US and EU — are offloading lithium-iron phosphate (LFP) batteries onto the global market. The result? Off-grid battery prices are falling faster than a politician’s promises after election day.

And for off-gridders, back garden solar tinkerers, rural dwellers, vanlifers, homesteaders, and the “grid-curious,” this is an unexpectedly golden hour.

A Power Glut

To understand what’s happening,  peek behind the geopolitical curtain. As the US and EU slap tariffs on Chinese EVs and battery exports in an effort to protect domestic industry (or, more cynically, delay the inevitable), Chinese manufacturers — now sitting on millions of surplus battery cells — have turned their gaze to less regulated, less protected markets.

In practical terms, this means you can now buy a high-quality, long-lifespan, 48V 100Ah LFP battery — the kind that used to set you back over $1,000 — for closer to $300–$400. That’s not a typo. That’s a seismic shift.

These aren’t shady knock-offs either. Many come from the same production lines supplying major electric vehicle makers. We’re talking about B-grade cells with A+ performance, packed into rack-mountable boxes with Bluetooth, smart BMS, and the smug satisfaction of sticking it to Big Utility. You can use the batteries to time-shift your electricity consumption, butyng at night when prices are cheap and using the energy during the day.  Plus you have the satisfaction of being prepared for the (almost inevitable) power cut.

The Grid Is Nervous — And It Should Be

This price collapse is a backhanded gift for those of us dreaming of energy independence. Suddenly, a reliable home battery bank — once the domain of the well-heeled prepper or early-adopting tech bro — is within reach of the average household. And that, frankly, scares the grid.

Why? Because batteries are the final piece of the puzzle. Solar without storage is like a kettle without a thermos: brilliant at 1pm, useless at 1am. But cheap, modular, durable storage? That’s a paradigm shift. That’s people keeping their own power, controlling their own time of use, not calling the utility company during a blackout –  because they didn’t notice.

Now, before you hop online and fill your shed with lithium bricks like you’re building the world’s first electric castle, remember: cheap doesn’t mean perfect. Safety standards, warranty support, and shipping risks still apply. Some sellers are brilliant; others sell you a battery and disappear like a blockchain startup.

But the …

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Community|Energy

Sun King’s Crown: 156m Reasons Off-Grid Solar Has Finally Grown Up

Kenyan company Sun King calls itself “the world’s largest off-grid solar energy company.” That’s not just marketing hyperbole—and it’s a statement that reveals how the energy landscape has shifted beneath our feet. The company’s recent $156 million securitisation (meaning sale of their existing revenue streams), the largest of its kind in Africa, isn’t just another funding round. It’s a watershed moment that signals the off-grid solar industry has finally matured from a niche development sector into a legitimate financial asset class that commercial banks are willing to bet serious money on.

But here’s what makes this story truly compelling: Sun King’s claim to being the world’s largest isn’t based on the usual Silicon Valley metrics of valuation or venture capital raised. Instead, it’s built on something more meaningful—actual impact at scale. With over 27 million solar products sold, 23 million homes powered, and $1.3 billion in solar loans extended to nearly 10 million customers across 46 countries, Sun King has quietly assembled the largest customer base in the off-grid energy sector while most of us were still debating whether distributed solar could ever be commercially viable.

 For the first time, commercial banks are treating off-grid solar as a mainstream financial asset rather than a development experiment. This legitimisation opens doors to capital pools that dwarf traditional development finance, creating the potential for unprecedented scale in clean energy deployment.

The timing of this funding is significant. As the world grapples with energy security, climate change, and the persistent challenge of providing electricity to 1.8 billion people who still lack reliable access, Sun King’s securitisation proves that market-based solutions can scale to meet these challenges—if we’re willing to think differently about how energy systems work.

Off-grid solar companies lacks the standardised metrics that financial analysts need to define leadership in traditional energy markets. Unlike utility-scale solar where gigawatts of installed capacity provide clear rankings, or residential solar where revenue figures tell the story, off-grid solar operates in a more complex ecosystem where success must be measured across multiple dimensions.

Sun King’s claim to the crown rests on several metrics. First, customer reach: with nearly 10 million individual customers served, Sun King has built a customer base that dwarfs its closest competitors [1]. For context, d.light, another major player founded the same year as Sun King’s predecessor Greenlight Planet, reports revenue of approximately $217-309 million annually but serves significantly fewer customers [2]. M-KOPA, the Kenyan fintech-solar hybrid, boasts higher reported revenue at $618.8 million but operates primarily in East Africa with a more limited geographic footprint [3].

What’s particularly striking is Sun King’s product volume: over 27 million solar products sold represents a scale of manufacturing and distribution that few companies in any sector achieve, let alone in the challenging off-grid markets of Africa and Asia. This isn’t just about bragging rights—it demonstrates something crucial about the company’s operational capabilities and market penetration

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dynamic-duo-ed-milliband-angela-rayner
Energy

Memo To Rayner & Milliband – You Should Talk About Energy for Housing

The UK Government last week laid out the domestic plan for its first year in office -prioritise housing and clean energy, in order to kickstart growth.

The duo in charge of these policies – Angela Rayner (housing) and Ed Milliband (energy), did not co-ordinate their announcements last week, and there is a feeling in energy circles that both policies may fall flat for the same reason – delays in generating clean energy to the places where housing is most needed.

Housing and energy are closely connected – you cannot build new communities until the power supply is in place. We know that there is currently a 10 year wait to connect new housing estates to the grid in some parts of the country, and a 10 year wait to connect a solar farm to the grid in others.

The government also launched its vehicle for its energy initiatives last week, Great British Energy, to be run by former Siemens executive Juergen Meier. it is going into the business of picking winners – but energy for housing does not appear to be in the list. £8.5b has been announced for it to co-invest with big industry players in the next generation of wind and solar farms. But these projects take years to start generating power. It took the best part of a decade to build the Hornsea 1 Windfarm, and that was AFTER planning permission was granted in 2014. So reforms to planning permission on which the government is currently consulting are unlikely to make much impact.
And the recent history of government energy deals shows the Civil servants charged with negotiations were ham-fisted and outmanoeuvred at every turn. The UK chair of French energy company EDF, Alex Chisholm, previously ran BEIS, the department that struck the deal for EDF to build a new nuclear power station in Somerset., as reported in the Guardian. “The agreement was made in 2016 with UK bill payers bearing the costs, which soared from an estimated £18bn to at least £31bn…. it is due to be completed in 2031 – about 14 years after EDF said it would be up and running.” In 2023, EDF was the leading company in the wholesale electricity generation market in Great Britain, with a share of 18.5 percent. The UK branch of the German company RWE ranked second last year, with a market share of approximately 17.5 percent
Data centres and EVs will gobble up all the new energy the grid can produce in this country for the next ten years.
Where does that leave the new housing starts that are so badly needed? How will they get their energy this year?
The big energy consumers will always need the grid, but for at least some new housing estates, electricity could be supplied from small local microgrids that do not need to be hooked up to the main grid …

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Pwoer lines in the blaze
Energy

3 LA Wildfires “Caused” by Faults on Grid

The number of faults on the power grid near three of the major Los Angeles County fires skyrocketed in the hours before the blazes began, according to Whisker Labs, a company that monitors electrical activity. This new evidence is raising serious questions about the role of the electrical grid in sparking the devastating wildfires that have ravaged the region, suggesting that the grid itself, not just extreme weather, is a major culprit behind the fires.

Bob Marshall, the chief executive of Whisker Labs, spoke exclusively to The LA Times, revealing that the areas near the Eaton, Palisades, and Hurst fires all saw massive increases in faults in the hours leading up to the fires. These faults—caused by everything from tree limbs hitting power lines to wires contacting each other—create sparks that can quickly ignite dry vegetation, setting off catastrophic wildfires in a matter of minutes.

It’s a chilling reality that we have seen unfold time and again: poorly maintained power lines, combined with nature’s fury, lead to a deadly combination that fuels the flames of these modern-day infernos. And the recent findings by Whisker Labs suggest that this very scenario played out in the heart of Los Angeles County.

3 key questions that need to be answered:

Why Didn’t They Turn Off the Power?

Can Insurers Sue the Utility Companies?

Are the Executives Facing Jail Time?

 

The Perfect Storm of Fire and Power Lines

Let’s start with the Palisades Fire, which has already become one of the most destructive fires in the history of Los Angeles. It spread l across 17,000 acres, destroying more than 5,000 homes, and  was fanned by the notorious Santa Ana winds. Winds topping 100 mph created the perfect storm, but what many don’t realize is that a crucial piece of the puzzle was the power lines.

According to Whisker Labs,by the time the fire began to spread like an uncontrollable beast, power lines were already sparking in the area. A similar pattern was observed in the days leading up to the fire, with faults in the power grid reaching dangerous levels just hours before the inferno took hold.

The pattern is clear: the power grid is malfunctioning in the worst possible way, creating a situation where something as simple as a tree branch falling on a wire can trigger a wildfire. And when the winds pick up, those sparks become an unstoppable force of nature, fueled by dry conditions and a climate increasingly prone to extremes.

In October 2017, 250 square miles burned in Northern California, destroying 6,000 homes and businesses and killing 44 people. For now, over SEVEN years later –  the cause of these fires has not been determined. The private utility company Pacific Gas and Electric, known to Californians as PG&E, is under investigation. Total damage for the Northern California wildfires comes to $9 billion. PG&E has started stockpiling cash

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off-grid-cartoon-showing-corrupt-international-utility-companies-bribing-politicians-and-civil-servants
Energy

Plan for Great British Energy FINALLY UNVEILED

UK Government announcements on energy policy today make clear the profits of international energy companies will trump UK households need for lower energy bills.  BBC interviewer Nick Robinson skewered Ed Miliband on a morning interview, in which he accused Labour of “guesswork” over the UK’s energy preparedness. In particular Miliband failed to provide a shred of evidence that prices would drop as a result of the new energy policies.  

Each household pays an average of £1750 for energy each year, so it is their money being spent to criss-cross the UK with copper cabling, shipped over from the mines of Zaire and the DRC. The decisions being made now will determine how hundreds of billions will be spent over the next 5 years. And there has been no meaningful consultation with anyone outside of tight circle of Miliband’s favoured energy execs – the same old story.

Miliband promises no power cuts this winter

Only a small part of the total investment is to come from Great British Energy. The multinational energy companies are expected to come up with £40bn a year according to Chria Stark, from “Mission Control”. So far just one major utility company has announced concrete investment plans as part of a vast decarbonisation programme that is supposedly to be completed in the next 5 years.(Iberdrola pledged £22b, although there have been few details.)

“What we are setting out today is a plan for a new era of electricity,” Miliband told millions of  listeners on the Today show. But actually there was no plan. No specifics, no roadmap, and no timing for any of his claims.

Still no clue how they will spend the £8.3 billion

There was remarkably little detail about Great British Energy , the centrepiece of the government’s growth mission –  no word on exactly how it would be operating, or what its first priorities would be. But enough was released to get a clear picture.

Hidden in the small print of the government’s accompanying press release, was piece of news. It appears the £8.3bn pledged to Great British Energy will be spent almost entirely on local or community energy. That is the good news. On the other hand, much of this money will be funnelled though local authorities which means it may be delayed by bureaucracy, and local interest groups will also slow down projects.

And based on the progress to date, it will be another year before any of those local community funds begin funding actual projects.

The key line in the announcement earlier today was one saying Great British Energy will spend its entire £8.3b on ”increas(ing) the quantum and consistency of Community Funds for transmission networks.”

Note the word consistency. The entire top down approach will dependent on rigid rules, that will stifle innovation and slow down the-already lumbering process to a snail’s pace

Local authorities will have little freedom

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energy-companies-buringing-money-while-micro-generators-make-money
Community|Energy

HOW TO DISRUPT THE UK ENERGY INDUSTRY – AND KEEP THE LIGHTS ON

A reckoning is due for Great British Energy – the UK government’s nascent £8.3b industry accelerator. Announced as the centrepiece of the UK “growth mission” its launch was accompanied by the news that it had spent £640m buying the nerve centre of the National Grid – the control room that apportions energy across the country on a live daily basis. In 2035 we may look back on that deal and think “only £640m…”  British energy Minister Ed Miliband has firm plans to waste billions by then – on carbon capture and Contracts for Difference, as well as reparations to low-lying islands in the Pacific, and thousands of hotel nights spent attending Cops30-40.

Literally anything could happen to the UK energy supply this winter, and almost all of it is bad.

But there is also something we can all do in our individual communities – to prepare for possible power cuts, this winter or any other winter.

After all, every household in the UK spends an average of £1700 a year on energy.

Ed’s big problem is that he has raised expectations.  He announced that not only will he solve the nation’s energy conundrum, but that he will also save money while doing it, keep the lights on, build 1.5m new home and launch a new global Britain on the back of it.

The energy industry, and the entire country, is waiting for action.  But Britain can never be an energy super-power, and Ed must know this.

Consider the facts – Annual GB electricity consumption is 292.7 terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity in 2023, about the same as Texas, a vast state with multiple connectivity issues in outlying areas. The UK has a small, compact grid, which is currently undergoing major re-engineering for decarbonisation.

Electricity demand is forecast to grow at 5% a year, but generation is not increasing at the same pace until 2029. The maximum power to be provided by two new nuclear plants planned (if they are on time it would be a first) is 56TWh. And Ed wants sharp reductions in oil and gas for electricity production. That produces a shortfall of another 50TWh by 2029

Then there is a 10-yr waiting list for new housing estates to get on the grid. That’s right – ten years from time of application to secure a supply from the grid.  Yet Labour says it will build at least a million homes in the next 4 years. How will it power the new homes? There is also a 10-yr waiting list for new solar farms to go on the grid, due to structural problems that require hundreds of miles of new cabling and pylons.   Quite simply, the grid is not fit for purpose, and nor is there the slightest chance it will be re-engineered until well after 2030. Nevertheless, the government says it wants to decarbonise the electricity system by 2030.…

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charge-station-asheville-nc
Community

Asheville Awaits Action From Duke Energy

As residents of Asheville, NC, queue to buy water, and stalk the streets of this artsy town looking for somewhere to charge their cell-phones, their entire view of the mountain enclave has been turned on its head. A week after Hurricane Helene, nearly half the population is still waiting for its power to be turned back on, according to off-grid analysis of a range of press releases, social media reports and industry data.

Thousands moved here over the past 10 years, precisely to reduce the risks of extreme weather, but many of the newcomers chose not to take out flood insurance because premiums were high, and are now facing devastating losses. They accepted assurances from Duke Energy, which supplies 95% of the power in the region, that all possible was being done to improve resilience and decarbonise the energy supply.

But current reports indicate nearly half Asheville’s 250,000 population is still without power and water. Across the Carolinas, where “major portions of the power grid… were simply wiped away, ”a million customers remain in the dark, according to PowerOutage.us.

Duke Energy has faced criticism in the past regarding its response to outages, particularly during severe weather events. Anecdotal accounts often cite concerns over reliability, particularly when comparing service restoration times to national standards.

August 24, 2024: A severe thunderstorm swept through Asheville, resulting in localized outages as high winds knocked down power lines ​(Citizen Times).

July 14, 2024: A summer storm led to multiple reports of outages across the city as lightning struck power infrastructure, impacting several neighborhoods ​(Citizen Times).

June 1, 2024: Duke Energy reported outages affecting thousands due to a strong weather system that produced heavy rain and gusty winds​ (Citizen Times).

May 15, 2024: A significant windstorm knocked out power for many residents, with gusts causing tree falls and power line damage across Asheville​(Citizen Times).

In Buncombe County where Helene hit hardest, which includes Asheville, at least 95,000 customers remain without power. In neighbouring Henderson County, 52,000 customers are still without power. Rutherford and McDowell counties still report about 23,000 and 19,000 outages, respectively.

Duke Energy has announced a $1m charitable donation to the community, but made no prediction on when the power will be back on.…

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the_future_of_energy_cartoon
Energy

Book Review: The Future of Energy: Timely, but Wrong

Richard Black’s new book, The Future of Energy, is impeccably researched, well-timed. and entertainingly written for such a dense subject.

It is also focused on the wrong future.

Black is a highly respected, former BBC environmental science journalist – he left the Corporation over a decade ago because his face didn’t fit in the febrile world of accusation and counter- accusation from climate deniers, and determined greenwashing from the large corporations which had begun muscling in on the funding for environmental tech.

Black’s general approach is in line with the UK government thinking. Their planned Great British energy invesmtnet vehcile will soon be dispensing its modest budget (£8.5 billion) to assist clean energy startups of all sorts – but mainly big ones. Black thinks Coal Oil and Gas are Bad. Clean Energy is Good. Which is perfectly true as far as it goes. But despite his talk about the Rockefeller oil dynasty and the distrust of government that comes through in every chapter – Black still opts for the easy life – adopting the general consensus in the climate industry that the present system will be much like the past but cleaner and better – that we can keep living largely the same way and dong much the same things, but somehow clean energy delivered by large companies will solve our climate problems for us.

This is not the conclusion I wanted to hear, and its all the more strange because a short chunk of the book does pay lip service to off-grid energy. Pages 43-46 of the 200 page book has Black telling us:
“For me, one of the biggest attractions of the clean energy system is the power it confers on people and businesses to make their own decisions. By opting in, people can choose to rid themselves of the daily dependence on coal for the fire, petrol for the car and gas for the boiler…”
He goes on

“With P2P trading, electricity is used close to where it is generated, reducing the need for big transmission cables, substations and other grid paraphernalia.“
The centralised grid, which like most commentators Black wants to see cleaned up “decarbonised strengthened and extended – is more part of the problem than it is part of the solution.

Black’s argument is very much in the mainstream of current thought – he is going with the flow But he would do well to remember that when he argues against Oil, Gas and Coal – he is doing the nuclear industry’s job for them – jsut imageine all those energy industry bosses salivating tat the thought of the extra bonuses they will get when oil is finally stopped. True, Black criticises Just Stop Oil for their performance politics – but he makes the same mistake as JSO – not realising that the culprit is not Big Oil = it is Big Energy that got …

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vampire-kangaroo
Community

Solar Park in Wiltshire Driving Locals Green

Over 14,000 people have signed a petition against large solar farms in their area following plans for a development covering 2,000 acres (810 hectares) in Wiltshire.

Lime Down Solar Park is designed to create 500MW of clean energy – said to be enough to power 115,000 homes – from six sites in villages in the county.

Developer Island Green Power says it will give a “net gain in biodiversity”. But locals say it will simply take away land that could be used for food growing, and provide no direct benefit to the local community.

The sites would be connected into the National Grid’s substation in Melksham, the proposals say.

The finance behind Lime Down is being provided by Macquarie Bank, an Australian company dubbed the Vampire Kangaroo — an Antipodean adaptation of the ‘vampire squid’ label applied to Goldman Sachs for the way it sucked up money — so most of the income may end up overseas.

The company has been widely accused of piling up debt at Thames Water, which it owned from 2006 to 2017, contributing to the problems at the water company.

With so many question marks over the environmental credentials of solar parks, it should be a cause for deep concern that Macquarie is involved .

The local MP, James Gray, who is against the scheme, blames ‘Wall Street hooligans’ for inflicting the Lime Down plan on his constituency and believes a British company would deal with the local community more sensitively.

He says this is not a party political issue as all the mainstream parties are fully behind Net Zero, as he is. He argues a Starmer-led government would be even more determined to push through Net Zero policies.

As locals see it, the whole political class appears to be ranged against the rural community of North Wiltshire, and their votes have nowhere to go on this issue except to fringe parties who have no hope of forming a government. So there is little political pressure on the Secretary of State to turn it down.

Many local residents are furious that big, titled landowners have been secretly in negotiation with Island Green and there are accusations of greed. On several estates, the land being offered for solar development has recently been taken back from tenant farmers. The rent being offered is a closely guarded secret, but sums in excess of £1,000 per acre per year are routinely advertised by renewables companies on the internet, perhaps five times the return that might be expected from farming.

Some farmers have been open in saying that they did not think there was a future in farming any more and this offered a lifeline. Others had been told by the developers that they would be surrounded by the solar complex whether they liked it or not, and had taken the attitude that if they couldn’t beat the development they …

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Energy

Solar Panels for Palestine – Donate Now

Whatever your views on the Arab-Israel conflicts, and on the Hamas atrocities of October 9th, nobody can no doubt that the humanitarian crisis demands immediate action by all of us – especially now that UNWRA has been exposed as a deeply suspect organisation. Sending money to huge bureaucracies like Save the Children or UNWRA – you know for sure that much of it goes in admin, bribes and other priorities than your own.

So if you want to help Palestinians on the ground in Gaza, who are surviving on tiny morsels of food, limited water and intermittent energy, if you want all your money to go straight to those in need – then we have a way.

Our cameraman in Gaza, will spend what we send him on buying solar panels, and film himself donating them to ordinary families. He has already been donating cash this way – brought in via Egypt.

He shot our latest Youtube footage, showing him distributing donated money – 50 shekels at a time. You can see the ID cards of the women as he hands them the money. You can see they are innocent citizens and not terrorists. Watch the video on our socials, and tell your friends.

Insta
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C3SFn31IQld/?igsh=a3Nxa3R4YjFnNDZo

Facebook
https://fb.watch/qaYFhPNFqc/

Tiktok
Banned

Youtube shorts

But solar panels are more valuable than money – they are the gift that keeps on giving. We have found a supply of panels in Gaza, and any donations received will be used to purchase them and give them to communities in need of energy to power their lights and phones.

Please paypal to nick@off-grid.net and we will get the money straight out there the next day.

Mark your paypal: Solar Panels for Palestine.…

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uk-power-demand-to-2050
Community

Anti-pylon Brits Could Herald New Off-grid Era

Retired film-maker Christopher Hamblin is unmoved at the prospect of a lump-sum payment from developers to compensate him for electricity towers and cables they want to build near his village in the east of England.

“That’s the trouble with these guys — they know the price of everything and the value of nothing,” says the 86-year-old resident of Ardleigh in Essex, a centuries-old settlement surrounded by some of the country’s most recognisable landscapes.

Hamblin and his fellow residents are part of a growing backlash in local communities across Britain against the expansion of power grids as the steps needed to decarbonise the economy start to encroach on them.

In an attempt to counter this resistance Nick Winser, the government’s electricity networks commissioner, has recommended lump-sum payments to households living close to proposed transmission lines. It was one of several measures aimed at cutting in half the 14 years it takes to complete these projects.

The government wants to decarbonise the electricity sector by 2035, while demand for electricity is expected to double or treble as the economy moves away from fossil fuels under its legally binding target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050. Electric Vehicles and AI data centres have added a crushing new burden.

The offer of cash for pylons (as towers are named in the UK) has not changed the mood in Ardleigh, which is in the path of a new 183km north-south high voltage transmission line that National Grid wants to build through the East Anglian countryside. It would run from Norwich in Norfolk down to Tilbury in Essex and bring in renewable electricity generated from new offshore wind farms.

It is one of several new electricity transmission lines being planned around Britain to move clean electricity often generated in remote coastal locations into more populated areas where it is needed.

The East Anglia plan mainly involves cables carried on 50m-tall pylons dotted across the countryside, including around Ardleigh, which sits on the edge of the protected countryside of Dedham Vale, made famous in the 19th-century masterpieces by local artist John Constable.

The reason for the opposition varies, ranging from blighting the landscape to the impact on farmers or health, but most opponents would rather see the power lines replaced by undersea cables running from the wind farms most of the way down to Tilbury.

“Every single house within that location — we will be in a cage of electricity pylons,” says Chris Whitfield, chair of Ardleigh parish council, pointing out part of the proposed route on a map.

Campaigners are well-organised, learning from other groups across the country, and are prepared to resort to legal action.

Local farm owner Charles Tritton suggested the anger is such that it could hurt the Tory party electorally. “The whole of East Anglia is pretty Conservative,” he said. “Add one or two per cent [swing vote] due to this …

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