Tristan Rutherford
Tests every tariff, battery setting and low-cost hour so his readers don't have to.
Tristan is a multi-award-winning journalist who has spent 25 years writing for The Guardian, The Daily Mail and the BBC. Lately he has turned the reporting on himself, chronicling his own solar install, battery optimisation and time-of-use tariffs across The Sunday Times and The Telegraph. Real system, real bills, real numbers.
Writes on UK energy for The Guardian, The Sunday Times, The Telegraph and the BBC.
25 years on the energy beat, now reporting from his own roof
Across a 25-year career Tristan has won seven journalism awards writing for The Guardian, The Daily Mail and the BBC. His recent solar-journey pieces in The Sunday Times and The Telegraph have documented panel installation, battery optimisation, and, to his children's ongoing dismay, a household rule that showers happen during low-tariff windows only.
His energy interviewees include the company directors of Octopus Energy, E.On, Fox ESS and Capture AI. When Tristan writes about a system, he is usually already living with it.
Tristan's family of five stays in energy surplus for 65% of the year, only tipping into deficit from mid-November to mid-March. At peak his array generates far more than the household can use, so the surplus is exported to the grid.
I don't recommend anything I haven't already lived with.
My family of five ran the experiments, the tariffs, the battery settings, the low-cost shower windows, so that readers get the version that actually works, not the brochure version.
To my children's ongoing dismay, that includes a household rule that showers happen during low-tariff windows only. It is the same instinct that runs the rest of the setup: try it properly, measure it honestly, then write it up.
When I write about a system, I am usually already living with it.
Everything he writes about, running at home
The battery and time-of-use experiments happen on his own roof first. Since completing his solar-and-battery installation in 2025, Tristan has not paid for electricity.
A 12.3kWp array that overshoots household demand at peak, sending the remainder to the grid for export income.
Battery paired with a Fox ESS inverter, tuned against time-of-use tariffs to charge cheap and discharge at peak.
Showers, appliances and charging shifted into cheap-rate windows, tested on his own family before it reaches the page.
Peak generation well above demand means the extra is exported to the grid for profit, not wasted.
A 25-year byline the national press trusts on energy
Tristan's energy and solar writing has appeared across the UK's major titles, drawing on directors he has interviewed at Octopus Energy, E.On, Fox ESS and Capture AI.
Writes for
The Guardian The Sunday Times The Times The Telegraph The Daily Mail BBC
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