Archive
Everything we have published, newest first — 100 articles.
August 2026
Why the optimum tilt for an array is flatter than people expect
A shadow on one corner costs far more than one corner
What standard test conditions measure, and why a roof never provides them
Panels degrade, and the first year does not resemble the rest
Optimisers and microinverters fix different halves of the same problem
Nameplate capacity and usable capacity are two different numbers
Depth of discharge is a dial rather than a setting
Round-trip efficiency quietly taxes every unit you store
A battery pays back through the tariff, not through the hardware
What a cycle counts, and why warranties measure it two ways
July 2026
Import and export are priced separately, and that changes everything
Time-of-use pricing rewards moving a load rather than shrinking it
An east and west array can beat a south-facing one on the bill
Standing charges mean cutting usage does not cut the bill proportionally
Reading a half-hourly consumption profile before buying anything
What the roof has to carry is mostly wind, not weight
Every roof penetration is a future leak unless the detail is right
The inverter is the part most likely to fail first
String length is decided by the coldest morning of the year
What actually goes wrong on installation day
Insulation usually beats generation on cost per unit saved
June 2026
Draught-proofing works on air exchange rather than on materials
Standby power is real and smaller than the folklore claims
One degree on the thermostat, and the physics behind it
Hot water is the load most households never look at
Monitoring only helps once you know what a dull week looks like
Cleaning panels repays in some climates and almost none of them
What a panel is actually rated to survive: hail, snow and mechanical load
Bifacial modules and trackers are sound ideas that rarely fit a house
May 2026
Ground mount versus roof, and what changes when the array leaves the…
Chemistry decides how a battery fails long before it decides capacity
Where the battery physically goes changes how long it lasts
Most solar systems go dead in a power cut, and that is deliberate
The percentage on the app is an estimate, and estimates drift
A car carries a far bigger battery, and it is usually somewhere else
An electric car is the largest load most houses have ever had
A heat pump changes the shape of a bill, not only its size
What your metering arrangement is actually counting
A smart meter enables things, and it does not save anything
April 2026
Kilowatts and kilowatt-hours are different products, and some bills charge…
An ageing roof should be replaced before the array goes on it
Access and scaffolding drive more of the price than the panels do
Export limitation is how a large array fits a constrained connection
Direct current is the part of a solar system that cannot be switched off
The gap behind the panels is doing more work than it looks
Sealing a house without ventilating it is how damp starts
Replacing windows is among the least rewarding energy measures
Lighting stopped being a large number, and the advice has not caught up
The refrigerator never stops, which is why where it stands matters
March 2026
Keeping a house cool is mostly about stopping heat getting in
What a performance warranty on a panel actually promises
An array is sized against the household, not against the roof
Why an array is often larger than the inverter it feeds
What moves in underneath a solar array
Judging an array that somebody else had installed
Surplus can go to the cylinder or to the battery, and they are not…
A battery is sized by the evening, not by the array
A battery ages while it sits, not only while it works
A storage system draws power simply to stay awake
Filling a battery from the grid is a different proposition entirely
Chasing a self-consumption percentage can cost more than it saves
February 2026
Who actually owns the array on the roof
An estimated bill is a forecast, and the correction always arrives
Measuring your own consumption without fooling yourself
Comparing this year against last needs the weather taken out
Whether the house has one phase or three changes the whole design
What an electrician is working out when they look at the consumer unit
Lightning rarely strikes the array, and surges reach it anyway
January 2026
The distance between the roof and the consumer unit is not free
A solar roof changes how a fire is fought
Insulation is several different products solving several different problems
A thermal bridge is a shortcut through the insulation
A heat pump asks the radiators to do more with less
Heating a room nobody is in is the loss controls exist to stop
Getting the water out of laundry costs more than heating it did
Cell technology matters less on a domestic roof than the datasheet suggests
A solar thermal collector and a photovoltaic panel want the same roof
Trees complicate a solar site in a way that gets worse each year
Where the annual yield figure in a quotation comes from
December 2025
What happens to a solar panel when it finally comes off the roof
Coupling a battery on the direct-current side is a different machine
What becomes of a home battery once it stops being useful
The mode a battery is left in matters more than another kilowatt-hour
Handing control of your battery to somebody else
Leaving the grid entirely is a winter problem, not a battery problem
A unit rate is several separate costs presented as one price
Fixing an energy price buys certainty rather than a discount
November 2025
Changing supplier is harder once the roof is exporting
A block of flats is the hardest place to share a solar roof
The cleanest hour to use electricity is not always the cheapest
Earthing an array is about fault current, not about lightning
What the commissioning measurements are actually testing
Connectors and cable routing cause more roof faults than modules do
A mounting system has to let the array move without letting it go
Putting an array over a planted roof or a usable terrace
A heat pump is sized from a heat loss calculation, not from the old boiler
Heat recovery ventilation and the retrofit it rarely justifies
A thermal camera shows surface temperature and nothing else
Cooking uses less energy than the attention it receives
