Understand your energy options.
Explore the fundamentals, compare the choices and get ready to ask better questions.
Solar panels
4Solar panels, a battery, or both?
Start with your daily routine. The right combination depends as much on when you use electricity as on how much you use.
From sunlight to your socket
A simple tour of a home solar installation: panels, inverter, your home and the electricity grid.
Is your roof ready for solar?
Direction matters, but so do shade, roof condition and the practicalities of putting an installation in place.
How to compare two solar quotes
Put the same information side by side before comparing the headline price.
Home batteries
2How much battery do you actually need?
A battery sized for a brochure may be very different from one sized for your evenings.
Will a home battery work in a power cut?
Storing electricity and keeping the lights on during an outage are different capabilities.
Heating
2Heat pumps, without the jargon
Understand what a heat pump does and the questions that make an installation work for a home.
Insulation or a new heating system first?
Treat your building and your heating as one project, even when you improve them in stages.
Energy basics
2Know your energy use before changing it
A few useful measurements can turn a vague ambition to save energy into a clearer plan.
Self-consumption is not the same as independence
Two percentages can describe very different things about the same solar-powered home.