I'm Darren Emery M.Sc., and I read quotes the way I read a plant specification.
Forty-odd years keeping the control and safety systems running in Britain's heaviest industry. Builder of a café from scratch. Inventor of the Welsh cake waffle. Now an Independent Energy Engineer, writing plain-English guides so Homeowners know what to ask before they sign.
Decades of precision Engineering, in plain English
On high-hazard refineries, petrochemical plants and offshore oil rigs, a figure that doesn't add up isn't a typo. It's a safety case. That's the discipline I was trained in, and it's the eye I bring to every guide on this site.
Every guide asks the questions I'd ask of any design: is it sized correctly, do the savings actually stack up, and what has the installer quietly left out?
I take no commission from anyone, and the site carries no adverts and no affiliate links, so I answer only to you, the reader.
B.Sc (Hons) · M.Sc. · SIL Champion · DSEAR Champion · Hazard Studies Leader · Gas and Vapours (Ex01–Ex04) competency
Darren is an Affiliate Member of the Energy Managers Association, in an individual capacity.
From apprentice "Tiffy" to Technical Authority
- 1983Apprentice Instrument Artificer at ICI Billingham. Learning to make measurement and control systems tell the truth.
- Early yearsFive years offshore: instrumentation on the oil rigs, where there's no popping out for a spare part.
- The heavy endValero Energy (Pembroke Refinery) · Tata Steel (Port Talbot) · Calor UK (Canvey Island LPG storage) · AGC Chemicals Europe (Hillhouse PTFE and ETFE plants).
- Along the wayFive years in Wales, and a café: built the Waffles Etc café in Pembroke from scratch, and invented the Welsh cake waffle.
- 2026Senior Project Instrument Engineer and Technical Authority, retired on 23 September 2026, and turned the same eye on Homeowners' Energy quotes, in plain-English guides.
- NowSavingEnergy.com: plain-English guides, and Sparky to keep it simple.
More plain-English guides
Written by an Engineer with 40+ years on safety-critical systems. Free to read, sources checked and dated.
“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.”Matthew 5:16 · King James Version
“God alone is enough.”
Sólo Dios basta
— St Teresa of Ávila, 1515–1582
Buy Your Bible Here →Bought straight from Oasis Christian Bookshop, run by Wallington Christian Outreach, a UK registered charity (no. 1056875). The shop is the charity. The money goes to them, not to me.