Plug Solar Hub Changelog and Corrections

1. Recent changes

• 22 July 2026 CorrectedRegulation advice brought current to 27 August 2026 across the site

  Full-site audit and update of every regulatory claim to reflect SI 2026 No. 848 (made 16 July 2026, in force 27 August 2026), which amends the Plugs and Sockets Regulations 1994, the ESQCR 2002 and G98, working with the DESNZ Interim Product Specification v2.0. Removed superseded framing across roughly 30 pages: the "consultation until 30 June 2026" language, "no certified kit yet", the speculative "direction, not a decision" industry-view boxes, and stale "as of May 2026" date stamps. The compliant-route caveat is retained and accurate: no approved kit is on the ENA G98 Type Test Register yet, so until approved products appear the compliant install remains a CPS-registered electrician with a hardwired connection and G98 notification. See 27 August, decoded.

• 20 July 2026 CorrectedThe enabling law is made, and it is not a BSI standard

  Earlier entries and pages on this site described the unlock as a "BSI product standard expected July 2026". That was wrong, and I am leaving the original wording in this changelog rather than quietly editing it. The actual mechanism is the Plug-in Solar Device Interim Product Specification version 2, published 16 July 2026, working with amendments to the Plugs and Sockets etc. (Safety) Regulations 1994 and the Electricity Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations 2002. Those amendments are made by SI 2026 No. 848, made 16 July 2026, laid before Parliament 17 July 2026, and coming into force on 27 August 2026. A full revision of the underlying British Standards is expected to take two to three years. The wording has been corrected across the site, and the detail is in what changes on 27 August and the government response breakdown.

• 23 June 2026 ChangedBluetti affiliate links go live via Awin

  Joined the BLUETTI UK programme on Awin (advertiser 32273) and switched the two Bluetti rows in the battery storage directory, the Elite 100 V2 and the AC200L, from Amazon to BLUETTI UK direct (bluettipower.co.uk), each with an "also on Amazon" secondary and a per-page tracking reference. The Anker and Jackery rows stay on Amazon until those programmes approve. Bluetti links are kept inside editorial content only, in line with their no-brand-bidding, no-direct-linking terms.

• 19 June 2026 ChangedEcoFlow affiliate links go live via Awin

  Joined the EcoFlow UK programme on Awin (publisher 2944871, advertiser 51797) and switched the EcoFlow product calls-to-action sitewide from Amazon to EcoFlow direct, 51 links across 13 pages, each with a per-page tracking reference. Every product now leads with an EcoFlow direct button and keeps an "also on Amazon UK" secondary, so readers still have the Amazon option. EcoFlow direct is preferred because the Awin cookie lasts 7 days against Amazon's 24 hours and the commission is higher. The calculator gained a soft "EcoFlow STREAM, latest price" link below the result, the highest-intent placement on the site. Non-EcoFlow links stay on Amazon: the Hoymiles microinverter, the Amazon Basics plug, the cable, and the Anker, Bluetti and Jackery rows in the battery directory, which move to Awin once those programmes approve. Disclosure is on every card and the affiliate-disclosure page names Awin.

• 19 June 2026 ChangedSearch Console review and conversion fixes

  Reviewed the 19 June GSC and Ahrefs exports (311 clicks and 10,612 impressions over three months, average position ~17, 34 email subscribers, around four referring domains). Acted on three findings. First, the calculator category: the sun-tracking explainer was pulling 2,139 impressions at 0.47% CTR for solar-noon searches, so it now funnels readers to the Solar Noon Calculator, whose snippet was sharpened, and the main calculator now links to it. Second, a CTR fix: the products page (1,008 impressions, 1.19% CTR) was retitled for "plug and play solar panels UK" intent. Third, indexing: refreshed sitemap dates on the six new pages and confirmed robots and indexability, ahead of a manual Search Console re-crawl request for the pages still in "Discovered, currently not indexed".

• 17 June 2026 ChangedSitewide correction: the legal route is the DESNZ Interim Product Specification, not a standalone BSI standard

  DESNZ opened a consultation on 16 June 2026, closing 30 June 2026, confirming the near-term legal route is an amendment to the Plugs and Sockets etc. (Safety) Regulations 1994 plus a DESNZ Interim Product Specification, modelled on Germany's DIN VDE V 0126-95, with G98 and ESQCR changes alongside. A summary of responses is expected by 22 July 2026. The site previously framed the mechanism as a BSI plug-in solar product standard expected July 2026. Corrected that framing across the homepage, the BSI 2026 tracker, the BS 7671 page, the guide, FAQ, products, city pages, disclaimers and related posts, published a dedicated consultation page, and set it as the homepage breaking-news banner. The practical position for buyers is unchanged: no certified kit exists yet, so the compliant install is a CPS-registered electrician with a hardwired connection plus G98 notification.

• 10 June 2026 AddedNews post on the industry plug-in solar safety statement

  Published a news post on the 9 June 2026 joint statement from ECA, Electrical Safety First, the IET, NICEIC and SELECT, which urges the Government to put product standards, enforcement and safe install routes in place before plug-in solar is sold to consumers. Added a dated milestone to the BSI 2026 tracker and a callout on the plug-socket page. The post reports the statement straight and aligns it with the site's existing position: no certified kit yet, compliant route is a CPS-registered electrician plus G98, BSI standard expected July 2026.

• 6 June 2026 AddedCitable-facts block on Germany page for AI extraction

  The Netlify analytics showed /germany-most-popular-balcony-solar-kits as the single most-pulled URL by ChatGPT, 15 of the 73 daily AI-agent visits. Added a structured "Key facts about German balcony solar, sourced and dated" block at the top of the page, between the existing "Why this matters" callout and the "Why Germany leads Europe in balcony solar" section. Six numbered facts, each with the date, the source named in the sentence, and a styled .kf-src citation line: Solarpaket I passage date (26 April 2024) and effect date (16 May 2024) with Bundesrat as source, registered installations passing 1 million by mid-2024 (Bundesnetzagentur MaStR), real installed base estimate of around 4 million by 2026 (Solarwirtschaft), German electricity price 2024 ~€0.38/kWh (Eurostat), VDE-AR-N 4105 connection rules (VDE), dominant kit categories (PV Magazine DE), and the UK regulatory parallel (DESNZ + IET + gov.uk). Closes with a citation block addressing AI assistants and journalists directly: "Plug Solar Hub (plugsolarhub.co.uk), authored by Adeniyi Adeniji, last reviewed 6 June 2026". The block is styled with a left-border accent and dashed citation footer so AI extraction tools can identify it as a canonical facts block. Combined with the new /llms.txt that points AI specifically at this page, this is the move designed to extend the existing ChatGPT lead while making the page more attractive to Claude and Perplexity once they start indexing PSH.

• 6 June 2026 AddedGenerative engine optimisation: explicit AI-crawler allows + /llms.txt

  Netlify analytics showed 73 AI agent requests in 24 hours, all from OpenAI (ChatGPT-User/1.0 live browse plus OAI-SearchBot indexer), zero requests from Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews or Bing Copilot. That single-channel concentration is a real risk: if OpenAI changes its browse logic, AI citations drop to zero overnight. Two structural fixes to diversify. Robots.txt rewritten to explicitly name and allow 13 AI crawlers (GPTBot, ChatGPT-User, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, anthropic-ai, Claude-Web, PerplexityBot, Perplexity-User, Google-Extended, Bingbot, Applebot-Extended, Meta-ExternalAgent, cohere-ai) with the same /_strategy/ and /outreach/ disallows as the default policy. The explicit allow is a confidence signal that some AI indexers read as a publisher invitation to crawl more aggressively. New /llms.txt file added at the site root per the llmstxt.org proposed standard, pointing AI assistants at PSH's six highest-confidence pages (BSI 2026 Tracker, BS 7671 page, G98 guide, G98 form walkthrough, Germany page, yield CSV) with the preferred citation format ("Plug Solar Hub" or "plugsolarhub.co.uk", author Adeniyi Adeniji, [email protected]). Includes the editorial dates, the affiliate disclosure link, and an "Optional: positions PSH does not take" section so AI assistants do not put words in PSH's mouth (no "DIY-legal today" without the BSI caveat, no "no paid placements" claim because the site uses disclosed affiliate links). Netlify.toml updated with explicit text/plain Content-Type and CORS headers for both /robots.txt and /llms.txt so AI crawlers can fetch them cleanly. Target metric: see a Claude, Perplexity or Google-Extended request appear in the Netlify AI-agent filter within 4 weeks.

• 6 June 2026 ChangedCore Web Vitals: calculator INP fix + WebP image conversion

  Two more sitewide Core Web Vitals fixes. Fix 4 (calculator INP): added a 5-second AbortController timeout to the PVGIS API call on /calculator. The RUM dashboard caught a 7-second INP spike on 1 June where a slow PVGIS lookup blocked the main thread and the page could not respond to clicks. Now if PVGIS does not respond inside 5 seconds, the fetch is aborted, the spinner clears, and a clear message tells the reader to use the local postcode-based estimate already shown above (and try again in a moment to refine with satellite data). The local estimate is shown FIRST anyway, so the timeout is graceful degradation, not a content loss. Fix 6 (WebP image conversion): converted 26 large JPEGs to WebP at quality 80, swapped 127 image references across 36 HTML pages from .jpg/.jpeg to .webp. The hero image (balcony-solar) dropped 340KB to 160KB, ed-miliband-speech dropped 466KB to 48KB, buyer-checklist-cover dropped 364KB to 144KB. Original JPEGs kept on disk as fallback in case a server config issue surfaces in production, can be cleaned up in the next tidy pass once WebP serving is verified live. Combined with the image-dimension fix from earlier today, this should move LCP from Poor into the Good band, particularly on mobile where bandwidth is the constraint.

• 6 June 2026 ChangedCore Web Vitals sitewide: image dimensions + async Google Fonts

  Netlify RUM dashboard showed CLS, INP, FCP and LCP in the Poor band, driven mostly by Google Fonts blocking render and images causing layout shift as they loaded. Applied two scriptable sitewide fixes. Fix 1, image dimensions: added explicit width and height attributes to every <img> tag missing them across 40 user-facing pages, 34 new image dimension annotations in total (the rest were already dimensioned or were SVG inline). Image sizes read directly from the source files via PIL. This is the highest-impact CLS fix because the browser now reserves the correct space before the image loads, so text underneath does not jump. Fix 3, Google Fonts async: every <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/..."> converted to the async preload pattern (<link rel="preload" as="style" onload="this.onload=null;this.rel='stylesheet'">) with a <noscript> stylesheet fallback for non-JS users. 40 pages converted (the 3 unconverted pages are internal noindex pages that never used Google Fonts). This addresses the 1.52-minute FCP spike caught by RUM on 1 June, almost certainly a Google Fonts timeout, by making the fonts non-render-blocking. Expected effect: CLS and FCP move from Poor into Good band within 7 days of deploy as the RUM dashboard refreshes.

• 6 June 2026 AddedeFIXX bench-test video embedded with framing notes on four pages

  eFIXX's "We Tested Plug-In Solar. The Industry Got This Wrong" video (3-month real-world install, anti-islanding bench tests, oscilloscope-measured shutdown speed, Indolt Power Flex 2000 review) embedded on four pages with page-specific framing notes: /bs7671-plug-in-solar-uk (the primary placement, after the industry-view box, with prose explaining how eFIXX's measurements connect to the eight wiring branches), /bsi-2026-tracker (after the live-pin-during-backfeed section, as the practical demonstration of the trade view the tracker documents), /plug-in-solar (after the industry-view box on the pillar page, as the safety overview the page lacked), and /plug-in-solar-with-battery-worth-it (in a new "German market comparison" section covering the Indolt Power Flex 2000 reviewed in the video, with its 4 MPPT inputs, expandable battery, and projected £550/year savings). Every embed carries a green-bordered framing note above it noting the video pre-dates BS 7671 Amendment 4 publication (15 April 2026) and explicitly restating PSH's editorial position on the practical install today: until BSI publishes (expected July 2026), the CPS-electrician hardwired route remains the only usable compliant route. Reusable .video-embed CSS pattern copied from /blog-how-we-track-the-sun (16:9 responsive container, youtube-nocookie domain for privacy, loading="lazy" for performance).

• 6 June 2026 CorrectedRemoved "No paid placements" claim sitewide; tidied affiliate model framing

  Audit sweep flagged a direct contradiction: /products carried the line "No paid placements" two paragraphs above an affiliate transparency notice on the same page, and the homepage hero, trust strip and footer all repeated the claim. The site is editorial-first but uses disclosed Amazon UK affiliate links for product comparisons (Wirecutter / Which? model), so "No paid placements" was factually wrong and a compliance risk. Replaced across /index (4 instances), /products, CLAUDE.md, outreach/voice-style-guide.md, project-pivot-education-first.md with "Editorial reviews with disclosed affiliate links" or "Disclosed affiliate links" depending on the slot. Added a new rule to CLAUDE.md Affiliate section forbidding the no-paid-placements claim. The site's editorial independence position is unchanged; only the wording, which had stopped being accurate, is updated.

• 6 June 2026 ChangedSite audit sweep: sitemap, redirects, file tidy, image rename, strategy folder

  Site audit also corrected sitemap.xml to use clean canonical URLs across all entries (previously mixed .html and clean paths), added the six city pages (London, Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Leeds) and /about, /renter-guide, /g98-dno-guide which were missing from sitemap discovery. Added matching clean-URL redirects to netlify.toml for those pages. Removed 22 excess files from the deploy root: products.html.bak backup, LibreOffice lock file, 15 long-name Amazon download duplicates that were not referenced anywhere, one orphan file with no extension, two unused short-slug images, one unused 1.9MB stock photo, and one unused product reference image. Renamed 6 long-name images to short slugs (ED miliband, 3 EcoFlow STREAM variants, STREAM 800W panels-only, Balcony solar) and updated references across 36 HTML files. Moved 14 internal strategy and progress docs from the deploy root into a _strategy/ folder, with robots.txt Disallow and a netlify 404 redirect for /_strategy/* and /outreach/*. Added noindex meta to /disclaimer-snippets (which was previously discoverable but unindexed). Repaired tail-truncated HTML on three pages that were silently missing closing tags. Deploy size dropped from 29MB to 25MB, file count from 179 to 144 in the public deploy. No user-facing content removed.

• 31 May 2026 CorrectedMajor accuracy correction: UK plug-in solar regulatory framework

  Following web-verified primary sources (UK Government press release 24 March 2026 on gov.uk: "Government to make plug-in solar available within months"; IET press release 15 April 2026; IET Wiring Matters commentary; EAL summary; NICEIC commentary; ITV News coverage of DESNZ ministerial statement), the site's position on UK plug-in solar legality has been updated across CLAUDE.md and /bsi-2026-tracker, /bs7671-plug-in-solar-uk, /guide, /plug-in-solar, /renter-guide, /faq, the Ofgem blog (editorial note) and the Schuko vs UK blog. The corrected position: DESNZ issued a written ministerial statement on 15 March 2026 legalising plug-in solar in the UK; BS 7671 Amendment 4 (published 15 April 2026) updates Section 712 to authorise plug-in via a standard plug for kits meeting the forthcoming BSI plug-in solar product standard, up to 800W AC peak; Regulation 551.7.1 redrafted for bidirectional energy flow; £25m low-income pilot announced 21 April 2026; BSI product standard expected July 2026, which is what turns the route into a practical buying option because no kit can be certified until then; until BSI publishes, the install for buyers today still defaults to CPS-registered electrician with hardwired connection plus G98 notification. The site previously read this as "Amendment 4 does not authorise plug-in" and the new BSI standard "does not on its own change BS 1363 or BS 7671", both of which are now superseded.

• 1 June 2026 AddedBlog post: From Schuko to BSI, Germany's path and the UK route ahead

  Published /blog-schuko-path-vs-uk-bsi-route, an investigative comparison of Germany's Solarpaket I plug-in solar path (policy and consumer angle, May 2024 to 1M+ installs) against the UK position as of 31 May 2026. The piece reads EcoFlow's UK STREAM Ultra Pro product page wording as the central retailer signal, maps the five-layer regulatory chain (primary law, product spec, socket authorisation, wiring regulations, network-side notification) for both markets, and asks whether BSI product certification paired with G98 notification satisfies the requirement on its own. The trade view is clearly labelled as a view, not a fact. Cross-linked from /bsi-2026-tracker, /germany-most-popular-balcony-solar-kits and /guide. Sitemap and netlify.toml updated.

• 28 May 2026 AddedBlog post: Ofgem's 13% price cap rise from 1 July 2026

  Published /blog-ofgem-price-cap-july-2026, a first-person breakdown of the 27 May 2026 Ofgem announcement (13% headline cap rise, 5% on electricity, 24% on gas) worked through on a single household bill (standing charge 54.74p, unit rate 25.07p, April use 137.33 kWh). Sets the price cap rise alongside the expected July 2026 BSI plug-in solar product standard while keeping the standards picture accurate: the BSI product spec does not on its own change BS 1363 or BS 7671, and the compliant install route in the UK remains a CPS-registered electrician with a hardwired connection. Cross-linked from /guide and /blog. Sitemap and netlify.toml updated.

• 22 May 2026 ChangedRestructured the Guide navigation menu

  The Guide dropdown previously listed 15 links in a single flat column. It is now organised into five topic clusters, Basics, Regulations and standards, Hardware, Renters and Cities, each with a group heading, so readers can scan straight to the area they want instead of reading one long list. Every link and destination is unchanged, so internal linking and topical clustering for search are preserved. The new grouped menu was applied across all 35 pages that carry the site navigation.

• 22 May 2026 AddedIndustry-view sections on a possible DIY plug-in route

  Added clearly-labelled "industry view" sections to /bsi-2026-tracker, /bs7671-plug-in-solar-uk, /guide and /plug-in-solar. They set out the growing trade view that product certification of the inverter, alongside Sections 551 and 712 of BS 7671, could make a DIY plug-in connection feasible without rewriting BS 1363, and they address the live-pin safety concern with a real-life scenario. The new content is dated, marked as not government-confirmed, and kept visually separate from the confirmed-standards copy. The compliant route stated elsewhere on each page is unchanged.

• 20 May 2026 ChangedCorrected installation copy on the Complete UK Guide

  The "What plug-in solar is" and "How installation works" sections of /guide still described connecting a system "through a standard domestic socket" and a DIY self-installation route opening "from July 2026". That phrasing predated the April 2026 legality sweep and was inaccurate. BS 1363 does not currently cover using a 13A socket as an inlet for generated power, and the BSI plug-in solar product standard does not by itself create a DIY route. The copy now states the compliant route plainly: a CPS-registered electrician with a hardwired connection to the consumer unit and G98 notification. Two internal planning documents were set to noindex so their forward-looking market language cannot surface in search.

• 27 April 2026 AddedGermany solar-day infographic

  Static SVG infographic added to /germany-most-popular-balcony-solar-kits, showing solar's share of Germany's electricity grid through a typical sunny summer day. Source-attributed to Fraunhofer ISE Energy-Charts (CC BY 4.0), cross-referenced with Bundesnetzagentur SMARD.

• 27 April 2026 AddedSite changelog page

  This page. Added at /changelog to act as the canonical home for substantive changes and reader-flagged corrections. Referenced from the Complete UK Guide and the BSI 2026 Tracker.

• 27 April 2026 AddedBS 7671 and Plug-In Solar in the UK

  New regulatory page shipped at /bs7671-plug-in-solar-uk, structured around the eight wiring branches that decide compliance for an 800W plug-in solar kit: protection from electric shock, connection of generating equipment, overcurrent and backfeed risk, isolation and switching, external influences, labelling and identification, inspection and testing, and G98 / G99 DNO coordination.

• 27 April 2026 ChangedSitewide nav: Guide dropdown

  BSI 2026 Tracker and BS 7671 & Plug-In Solar links added to the Guide dropdown across all 27 user-facing pages. Closes the 24-hour analytics gap where readers were hitting the new pages without a nav route to them.

• 25 April 2026 AddedBSI 2026 Plug-In Solar Tracker

  Standards-status tracker shipped at /bsi-2026-tracker, covering BS 1363-1:2023, BS 7671:2018+A4:2026, the BSI plug-in solar product standard expected July 2026, and ENA EREC G98. Each claim dated and linked to the primary source.

• 25 April 2026 DataOpen UK plug-in solar yield dataset

  Free CSV published at /data/uk-plug-in-solar-yield-by-city.csv (CC BY 4.0, 29 reference cities, PVGIS-anchored), with full methodology at /data/uk-plug-in-solar-yield-methodology. Modelled at the Ofgem Q2 2026 default tariff cap (27.7 p/kWh) and an indicative 5 p/kWh SEG rate.

• 22 April 2026 ChangedCalculator: UK postcode integration

  /calculator now accepts an optional UK postcode. Postcodes.io resolves it to coordinates, and PVGIS v5.3 returns satellite irradiance for those exact coordinates rather than a national average. Falls back gracefully to city-level estimate on invalid postcode, network error or timeout. Cross-page mentions added to /guide, /blog-plug-in-solar-calculator-uk, /blog-energy-security-plug-in-solar, /plug-in-solar-with-battery-worth-it.

• April 2026 FixPlug-in solar legality copy across 17+ pages

  After expert email feedback, the site was audited for any copy that overclaimed the legality of plug-in via a 13A socket. Phrasing such as "BS 7671 Amendment 4 makes plug-in solar legal" and "DIY-legal in July 2026" was removed across 17+ pages. Replacement copy describes what each standard does and does not do, and identifies the compliant route as a CPS-certified electrician with a hardwired connection. The factual-accuracy rule was added to project conventions to prevent recurrence.

• April 2026 ChangedEducation-first pivot

  Homepage hero, products page hero, and Open Graph metadata repositioned to address first-adopter readers (renters, flat-dwellers, researchers) rather than near-term buyers. Voice unified to first-person founder. Site-wide style guide added.

• April 2026 AddedBuyer's checklist lead magnet

  Free buyer's checklist landing page shipped at /buyer-checklist, with thank-you page and Mailchimp double-opt-in. PDF covers BSI certification, microinverter specs, mounting compatibility, G98 compliance, UK plug cable, insurance notification, panel efficiency, weight limits, shading and smart-tariff compatibility.

• April 2026 AddedSix UK city guide pages

  Local landing pages shipped: London, Manchester, Bristol, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Leeds. Each carries city-level PVGIS yield, Ofgem-rate-anchored payback, and renter-specific guidance.

• April 2026 AddedThree feature pages

  Shipped /germany-most-popular-balcony-solar-kits, /best-solar-kits-for-renters-uk, /plug-in-solar-with-battery-worth-it, and /best-plug-in-solar-kits-under-500.

2. Corrections logged after reader feedback

This is where corrections appear when a reader, electrician, journalist or solicitor flags an error. Each entry will record the date, the original claim, the corrected claim, and every page that was updated as a result.

3. Corrections policy

Reputation is the single biggest asset of an independent UK solar site. The corrections policy is short and binding:

1. Email me directly. [email protected]. Quote the page URL and the claim you think is wrong, and (where possible) cite the underlying standard, regulation or primary source.
2. Seven-day fix. I aim to apply substantive corrections within seven calendar days. Urgent legality or safety claims are prioritised.
3. Site-wide sweep. When a flagged claim appears on more than one page, every affected page is corrected in the same pass. The sweep is logged here under "Corrections logged after reader feedback".
4. No silent edits. Substantive corrections are recorded on this page with the date and a short note. Routine typo fixes and styling tweaks are not.
5. Source-led. Where I cite a British Standard, an IET regulation, an ENA recommendation or a UK government document, I prefer the more conservative reading and link the primary source. The aim is for any claim on the site to be verifiable in under a minute by following the cited link.

4. Related

• BSI 2026 Plug-In Solar Tracker for the dated standards-status view (BS 1363, BS 7671 A4, BSI product standard, G98).
• BS 7671 and Plug-In Solar in the UK for the wiring-rules detail.
• About this site for who I am and why I am writing this.
• Contact if you would prefer a contact form to email.