Did it help? I have a feeling it does help, but I'm not 100% sure about the water/electricity details either yet, but like you I kept running out of my surplus while having selected off-the-grid plumbing stuff, and this seemed to make it better.
And yes, the fuel thing is really cool! You need a few upgrade parts to upgrade your electronic device to run on fuel, but then you can just collect fuel from crickets or use 2 pieces to fuel it up, and you never have to worry about running out of energy again lol. It's very neat! I'm not sure yet how often you need to refuel them, but I don't think it's very often. This also works on fridges, stoves, laptops, and I'm guessing all other fully electronic devices too! :)
https://i.imgur.com/Wimx9L3.png