Our Editorial Policy: How We Research, Write and Correct

• Official sources first. We prefer federal statistical agencies, then state regulators, then utilities and manufacturers, in that order. We do not rely on a blog or a forum for a number.
• Every number traceable. Figures in data pages are built by software from the source tables, so they are not typed by hand. Figures in explanations are checked against the same files.
• Examples are labeled. When we use made-up numbers to show a method, the page says so.
• No invented experts. We do not quote people we have not spoken to, and we do not post reviews, testimonials or awards we cannot document.

1. We decide what question the page answers and who asks it.
2. We pull the data from the official source and write down the formula.
3. The page is drafted with the answer first, then the explanation, then the sources.
4. Automated checks test the page for length rules, broken links, structured data and banned wording.
5. The publisher reads the page and checks the numbers before it goes live.

Every page shows the data year and the date it was last reviewed. A review date changes only when a person reads and edits the page. We refresh data when the source publishes a new final year, and we review pages on programs and rules more often, because those change.

The site is not owned by a utility, a regulator or an energy supplier. Our affiliate disclosure explains how the site earns money, now and in the future, and why it never touches the data.

Tell us. We check the claim against the source, fix the page if we were wrong and add the change to the corrections log with the date. If we disagree, we explain why.

• Rankings of suppliers or plans that we cannot back with a clean public data source.
• Claims about savings that we cannot calculate from data and show the math for.
• Pages whose only purpose is to attract search traffic and that do not help the person who lands on them.