The right EV charger for a solar household depends less on brand loyalty and more on three things: which battery system you already have (or are getting), whether your home has a single or three-phase supply, and how much you care about design. Spirit Energy has installed solar and EV charging systems across more than 6,000 UK homes, and the question of which charger to pair with panels comes up in almost every conversation once a customer has an EV or is planning one.
Electricity prices are going up roughly 5% this July. For most households that means a bigger bill and not much else. But if you have solar, a rising electricity price works in your favour - in two ways that most payback quotes completely ignore.
Solar installations in the UK are about to get more expensive, regardless of the taxpayer funded subsidies arriving at the start of 2027. Three policy changes and one market shift are converging in the same few weeks. Two of the policies are designed to make solar more affordable, but in practice they will push prices up for anyone paying out of their own pocket.
The Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) currently require commercial properties in England and Wales to hold an EPC rating of E or higher to be let on a new or existing tenancy. That has been the law since 1 April 2023. Properties below E are unlettable unless a valid exemption is registered.
TL;DR From 24 March 2027, every new home in England must have solar PV under the Future Homes Standard in accordance with the final Approved Documents. It is a functional requirement of Building Regulations, not an optional upgrade.
TL;DR
Care homes have one of the most consistent and unavoidable energy profiles of any building in the UK. Heating runs all day. Lighting runs all night. Medical equipment does not pause. Staff are on site around the clock. There is no quiet period where you can simply switch things off and wait for cheaper rates.
For those who have their finger on the pulse of the solar energy market, it's becoming obvious that there is an increasing shift towards the manufacture and use of n-type solar from p-type panels in both commercial and domestic settings, to the point where the former now dominate. But why has this shift come about, and more fundamentally what is the difference between the two?
In the space of just a few years, the average panel we install on domestic projects has shot up from around 315W to at least 375W, with more and more residential modules breaking the 400W barrier.
This is down to a few factors, such as the widespread adoption of new, more efficient technologies, bigger cells and bigger modules:
When researching solar PV, you may have come across the phrase ‘tier 1 solar panels’. It’s used as a selling point by some manufacturers and installers to demonstrate the reliability of their products. But is that really the case?
