Susanna Codes

On the Nature of Making Your Dreams Come True I have this beautiful power and I want to use it. I have this blog and this beautiful superpower and I want to use it. My superpower is my passion. A photo my sister took of a French windfarm at dawn. It's my photo of the year!!!  I have this beautiful passion, and my passion is my superpower, and I just have to focus. I just have to focus. I just have to focus. On the Medium article so far I asked Chat GPT to give me a summary of my 3 last blog posts - one point in particular was particularly interesting: "Technical Solutions for Grid Stability and Resilience:  Consistent focus on key aspects crucial for grid stability and resilience: grid stability, flexibility, energy storage integration, demand response, load balancing and communication infrastructure." Persistent dedication to researching and understanding these elements while working on related projects. An ongoing commitment to exploring technical interventions, enginee

On the Nature of Power I want to keep on focused on these five things: Grid stability and flexibility Energy storage integration Demand response and load balancing Communication infrastructure Grid resilience  I want to keep on doing my research, and I want to keep on working on what I am working on, but I do not want to lose track of all of this stuff. Grid stability and flexibility. Energy storage integration Demand response and load balancing Communication infrastructure Grid resilience. Grid resilience, grid resilience, grid resilience. And so whatever I focus on and whatever I am doing I always want to keep track of these five things. Whatever I am working on, I always want to keep my mind on these five things.

Can't You See Me, for Me (Part 2) "Can't You See Me, For Me." Dare to see me for me. I am quoting Weyes Blood again. Can't you see me who for I am. Dare to see me for who I am. Passionate. Obsessed. I love what I do. I love what I do. Passionate. Obsessed. On a Mission. "I hope you get to know me," she sings, in Cardamom Princess. Can't you see me, for me? 💚 Can't you see me, for me? I don't know how to be anyone else. I CAN'T be anyone else. Can't you see me, for me? 💚💜💙🏞 Dare to see me, for me. Some more lasers for you today I love laser beams. And so back to the Medium article... Data-driven maintenance So one of the issues around the grid is its maintenance. How funny because that came up a lot before with my previous research around hydropower and marine energy and software engineering, funny because I thought I was moving away and into something new with the smart grid but maybe it shows that it's so much more connected

Candles, part III I am trying so hard to focus.  I am trying so hard to focus, I am trying so so hard to focus. I am trying so hard to focus on my blog and on my passion for software engineering and renewable energy, and on my love for electricity. I am trying so hard to focus on my blog and on my passion for software engineering and renewable energy, and on my love for electricity. On the nature of focus What is making is so hard for me to focus? What is it that keeps on distracting me? Is it because I feel like I need more in my life and so I fill it with new things only to realise that I wanted to just focus on what it was that I had in the first place? I am obsessed with laser beams at the moment. They are all about focus. Candles Candles by John Hopkins is one of my favourite coding, passion and focus songs. On the Smart Grid Our current grid was designed over 100 years ago and was for when people had very very few appliances at home. Moreover it was for a time when electricity wa

Second Sun, part II "Second Sun" by Nils Hoffman and Ben Bohmer has got to be one of my favourite all-time coding songs and electronic dance tracks. 💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜 And today I tried to get into one of the remixes! It's giving me massive alt-j vibes. Omg this is INSANE and it is really growing on me. I already know that I am going to LOVE this!!! 💜 I prefer the original though. Both the remix and the extended mix don't have my favourite bit of the song in them. The electricity I love it so so much. I love it more than I can ever say. I love it so so much. I love it more than I can ever say. Hydropower and the Grid I asked chat GPT to summarise some ideas about hydropower and the grid for me. Out of 10 points, I found 5 of them the most interesting. I don't want to copy Chat GPT verbatim but I do want to just get these 5 points out - and to find the key theme that they are focusing on.  Here they are: 💜 💜 Grid Stability and Flexibility Energ

Search your heart, search your soul, and when you find me there, you'll search no more "Search your heart, search your soul, and when you find me there, you'll search no more". - Brian Adams I fell in love with this song while I was away on my meditation retreat but really I have always loved it anyway. This song speaks volumes to me about my passion, and my love for what I do.  "You can't tell me it's not worth trying for" Reflecting on two of the strengths and potentials of digital software solutions in hydropower 🌊🌊 Monitoring equipment using sensors One thing you can do with software engineering in hydropower is to monitor equipment using sensors.  This can be done in real time and I guess it can be done remotely too then. Obviously. Software integrated with sensors can monitor vibration, temperature and pressure in a hydropower plant. If the software can promptly process incoming data, then it can provide instant real-time insights into the co

My dream is to be the whole of you I'm quoting myself today! This line is from a song that I wrote.  It's available to watch on YouTube . What are my plans and thoughts for today? Well firstly I'm working on a very very hard ticket at work at the moment - that HAS to be my top priority.  But other than that... well apart from that... I would like to review my yesterday's blog post about marine and hydro energy and software engineering and then to keep on going from there... My dream is to be the whole of you So digital solutions are needed for marine energy and hydropower. For hydropower, which is very historically important, and has been around for ages, and which generates and will most likely to continue to generate absolutely massive amounts of renewable energy - and for ocean energy, which is still so very much in development stages.  For example, wave, tidal and ocean thermal sources of renewable energy are only just being rolled out, explored, implemented and di

We Did It For Fun, We Did It For Free I will quite clearly never find the words for how much I love electricity. I think a big part of why I've become a Software Engineer is so that I can better serve the electricity and renewable energy industries. It's funny, because - I always knew that I was doing the software engineering, becoming a software engineer, for some kind of a higher purpose. But I never thought or imagined that it would take me back and bring me back to my one original love, which was renewable energy. Electrcity. Above is a picture of the Eakring national grid centre which is near my grandad's house, where I am staying right now. It is a perfect summarisation of what I love - or a part of it, anyway.  There you are, in my heart, shine on So I wanted to do just a bit more on the Digiteum article that I've been meaning to read for ages - but just to focus on my two (or two of my) favourite parts, before I progress with anything. This is an experiment for

Isn't it cool how nothing here changes at all? "Winter to spring,  Spring back to fall, Isn't it cool how  nothing here changes at all?" - Lana del Rey, Yosemite My love and my passion for renewable energy will never, ever, ever change.  My love for electricity - well, it never changes, at all.  There is a training centre in Eakring, near to where my grandad lives.  I love to drive past it and all of its wind turbines and to feel its very very magical energy. Asking Chat GPT to summarise some of my most recent blog posts Trying to look for themes in them. And they are: I find renewable energy inspirational. I am intrigued and inspired by the rapid advancements in renewable energy technologies, especially software innovations. I am excited to explore how software engineering can contribute to the renewable energy sector.  I am surprised by the impending deadline for decarbonising the grid by 2050 and am curious about the ongoing innovations in renewable energy technolo

There You Are, In My Heart, Lighting Up The Grid A friend of mine is an amazing singer-songwriter. He has a song which goes "There you are in my heart shine on." You can check him out on instagram at @thisluminousdarkness.  While we got to spend some time together last week I told him a bit about my love for electricity (a bit is an understatement; I talked about it a lot). And so one day he said to me: "There you are in my heart lighting up the grid." So I had to make an image of it as my wallpaper for work. It's done. Do you like it?  Finishing up this article This article is actually huge and I don't know how to best approach it. It is so long. I would also like to go back over my last 20 or so blog posts (just under) and revise them. I would like to go through that last article bit my bit and understand it. Those two are my top priorities.  Maybe even revising the posts is a bigger priority.  That way then I can come back to this beautiful Digiteum artic

On the nature of daylight, part 3 I love the way that pylons make me feel when I look at them. I love the way that wind turbines make me feel when I look at them. I love lights. I also love subtler and more secret forms of electricity - the security cameras. The alarms. It's all just electricity isn't it anyway. Another image of Dr Louise Banks in Arrival, a woman whose passion inspires me to no end. Her quiet focus and dedication. So wonderful. So inspiring. There you are, in my heart, shine on One of my beautiful and lovely wonderful friends has a song that he wrote and these are the lyrics to the first part of the chorus. Only because he knows how much I love electricity he repurposed it for me to: "There you are, in my heart, lighting up the grid." It's beautiful. So beautiful. I'm so grateful. It's just a beautiful idea. So beautiful. I belong at the heart of the renewable energy transition. I belong at the heart of the renewable energy home transitio

On the Nature of Daylight, part 2 Something is not quite right. I am not quite happy with my life and this whole thing and how it is going. I love code so so much. I love coding so so much. I love this so so much. I love electricity. I LOVE RENEWABLE ENERGY. I don't know how to be any other way. Dr Louise Banks, in Arrival I don't know how to be anyone else, than who I am.  On inspiration and blog posts I want to stay inspired. I want to stay very inspired. It is important to me to use inspiring content for my blog posts and therefore if something is not inspiring then I plan to discard it, no matter how relevant it may seem.  Renewable Energy Innovations According to this article , the deadline for decarbonising the grid is 2050. Wow - I really didn't realise it was so soon. This article talks about "renewable energy innovations". It says that they are happening quite fast. I wonder what they are. I wonder what they could be. And is it referring to hardware or to

Don't Leave Me Where I Lay Down "Let it fall by the way, but don't Leave me where I lay down" - Madonna,  Don't Tell Me What would you say if I told you that Madonna is my role model?  Have you ever seen the way that she smiles when she dances? She is obviously so so passionate about it. I love her song "Don't Tell Me" so much. It's probably by favourite one by her. Don't leave me behind. Don't leave me where I lay down. It may be hard writing this blog. It may be hard following this destiny and this passion.  But don't give up on me, I am saying to myself. Never let me go. The most interesting thing from my last blog post  The most interesting thing from  my last blog post all of the work I have done on schneider electric, and i.e. all of the work I have done over the last 5 days, is this: The LV (or low-voltage) grid I find this so fascinating. To quote from my blog, here is the quote that a colleague found for it from Chat GPT. The

this is it i'm signing off (hopefully not actually literally) This is a quote from a Lana song I love, the greatest. I love all of the softness and the gentleness at the end. The acceptance. The resignation. The finality. I've wanted to call a blog post this for ages. I just love the ending of the song.  I love how it builds up to it. It's so beautiful. It's just... acceptance. Edge Management Back to Schneider Electric and smart grids.  What even is edge management anyway? This website mentions the "Grid Edge". "Optimising supply and demand" As usual I understand nothing in this post. It mentions DERs - yay! I understand those after all. (They are "distributed energy resources" - generation resources on the customer's side of the meter). It says here that utilities are operating something called a "low voltage (LV) grid". What! What is this thing! And how did I not know that it exists. It says that in this instance utilities

Pour out the love, let the healing begin I haven't listened to as much of Sampa the Great as I would've liked to, but boy did her song "Energy" make an impression on me. Such a powerful song that I just keep on coming back to again and again. I especially like the subtitled bridge, which is apparently in Krio (a West African language), which is performed by Nadeem Din-Gabisi. This whole song is an outpouring of celebration and love. It is so beautiful and so feminine-centric.  It is just such a beautiful celebration of motherhood, womanhood and love. And it made me think about software engineering.  It made me think of how much I want more women in the field. Not because I don't love the men- I do. I just wish it had a bit more variety. Back to Smart Grid for a few minutes I was studying this pag e by Schneider Electric. So here is Part 2. "Asset Management" The subheading in this section is "a single, integrated system of design" and I don

Grids of the Future As part of my life's work on software engineering and renewable energy, I am going to be looking at some businesses and what they do. I hope that that's alright. I am not profiling them or doing any work on them in any professional capacity.  I am just approaching this like a Uni student. I am just trying to learn as much as possible about the renewable energy transition and the role that software engineering can play in supporting this.  An interesting topic that I have found for another time while searching for images is the challenge of cybersecurity in the smart grid. Another time. As that is most certainly a software engineering problem. Schneider Electric UK While googling "software solutions to the smart grid" (which is kind of just my plan at the moment, along with a list of resources I have compiled), I came across this website for a company called Schneider Electric in the UK. I  would like to take a bit of a look at what they are doing.

Popcorn "Popcorn" by Gershon Kingsley was the first EDM hit of all time. Be like "Popcorn" by Gershon Kingsley. The first of your kind. The first of all time. On Coding and Renewable Energy I solved what feels like my first ever real coding problem at work this week. It feels so huge. And right now I feel like I love the backend. Building the frontend page was fun. But solving a problem in the backend like I did this week was so much cooler. And I guess that now what happens is I have to question my whole existence. I am reading a very cool new interesting article "The speed at which intermittent renewables - the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow - are coming on board is making it harder for European utilities to balance the grid." It also says below "The grid, as large as it is, is also a delicate system where supply must match demand at all times or there's a risk of blackouts." "In France, for example,

Every World is My World "Ordinary World" by Duran Duran is such a cathartic song for me and one that I love so much. But I really love the Joy Williams cover version - so soft and so gentle. Sometimes you've just got to keep on writing. No matter how tired you are. You've just got to keep on going. And today is one of those days. Software Engineering x Renewable Energy  I have a million thoughts running around and swimming around in my head. I can't read today - I have tackled a huge coding problem - but I can write. So let's see. Let me think about this. The smart grid. How are we going to make this happen?  The smart grid that can support 3x as much electricity generation and up to 5x at peak time. When we get rid of gas and we all have EVs and heat pumps. When we become "electrified". Electrification. That is what we are working towards. The Integration of the Grid with Home Generation But in order to meet demands like these, it could be that we n

Summer Comes, Winter Goes " Summer comes, winter goes, spring I skip, God knows". The title quote is an excerpt from one of my favourite songs by Lana del Rey, called "Blue Banisters". When I first heard it in October 2021, I thought that it sounded like exactly what healing felt like. Renewable Energy x Software Engineering  Finishing off this article Software is at the heart of everything that we do now. From ordering food, to doing our shopping, to tracking and monitoring our health, to planning our travel, and booking our trips. It is inescapable; it is the future. In any case, all companies are using software now to compete against each other and to try and get the competitive edge on each other. Therefore, why should renewable energy be any different? Should it be competitive, though? I get the need for competition in business. I am not against that. But for solutions like the smart grid; is it about businesses competing against each other? I suppose the argum