Buying guides
Which one, for the energy you actually use
A hub weighs a whole family against itself. A guide takes one question instead — a figure to spend, a first station for someone who has never counted a watt-hour, what a rented balcony can legally carry — and answers it with a short ordered list and the reasoning that produced the order.
- Start here
Your first balcony solar installation
What a plug-in balcony solar installation actually needs, in the order it has to be bought, and which figure decides each choice.
- Vehicle electrics
Powering a van conversion
The electrical parts a camper conversion actually needs, from the battery outward, with the figure that decides each one.
- Backup power
Keeping the lights on
What backup power looks like at four scales, from a desk UPS to a generator, and which figure decides each choice.
- EV charging
Charging an electric car at home
The three ways to charge at home compared on speed, safety and what has to be installed, with the figures that decide between them.
- Measure first
What to measure before you buy anything
The five instruments that turn a guess about a power system into a number, and what each one is actually for.
- Protection
The parts nobody photographs
Fuses, breakers, glands, ferrules and cable — the unglamorous half of a power system, and the figures that make each one right.