Solar Battery Storage
Store More, Save More with Solar
Solar battery is similar to portable power packs that you can charge your mobile phone with when you are out, however, a solar battery is much bigger and less portable.
Solar energy is the fastest growing renewable energy solution. Solar PV and Battery installations are a low-maintenance technology. It is a power plant of your own that pays for itself, increases your property value and lowers your carbon footprint. With more electric cars, heating and the world around us becoming more dependent on electricity, it is only a matter of time before there is solar everywhere.
A solar battery allows you to store electricity produced by your solar panels and use it later or, in some cases, sell it back to the grid. Some electricity can be used as well to charge electric cars and heat pumps, which increases their usefulness. Any electricity generated from your solar panels can be stored in your solar battery to then charge up your Electric Vehicle overnight.
There are now special energy tariffs available if you have solar panels and a solar battery, which offer much cheaper rates for electricity at off-peak times, usually for a few hours overnight. By charging your battery from the grid during off-peak times when it is cheaper and storing the energy, you can use it when electricity from the grid is at its most expensive.
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Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
A battery allows you to store any electricity you do not use, so that instead of exporting the energy back to the grid, you can use it later when the sun is not generating electricity.
This depends on both how much electricity you generate from Solar PV panels and when you use electricity the most. If your primary motivation for getting a solar battery is to save money, it may not be worth it until the price of solar batteries comes down, which it should, as the technology evolves and improves, or if the price of electricity rises steeply. If you tend to use a lot of energy in the evening, it is probably recommended to install a battery, making your home more self-sufficient, saving you money, reducing your reliance on the national grid and which does make it an environmentally-friendly addition to your home.
Solar batteries come with a hefty upfront cost. It is incredibly difficult to quantify whether a solar battery will be worth it, as every household has different energy usage patterns. The extra savings are relatively small to recoup the cost of buying a battery over its lifespan, although of course, it depends on the cost of the battery, the price of electricity and how you use it. The actual cost will depend on your home and the size of the battery you want or need, but it can start from £1,800 upwards. A solar battery also works well with time of use tariffs. It allows you to buy and store cheap night-time grid electricity to use later in the day when electricity would normally be much more expensive.
Your inverter is what powers your appliances which has three sources of energy: solar panels, battery plus the grid and it will use electricity in that order. Any unused electricity is exported back to the grid when your battery is full, or when you schedule it to. Most modern storage batteries allow you to monitor your electricity generation and storage via an app or online.
It is usually cheaper to use energy stored in the battery than get paid to export it. Under the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) scheme, you get paid for each unit of electricity you do not use and export back to the grid.
The Feed-in Tariff (FIT) is now closed for new applications, but many customers with solar panels signed up when FIT was available. If you are receiving FIT, part of it is based on the amount of electricity you generate and export to the grid. If you do not have a smart meter, the amount of electricity you export is estimated at 50% of what you generate. If you have a smart meter, your export payments will be based on actual export data. If you have a home battery installed, your export payments will be estimated at 50% of what you generate. This is because your export meter cannot determine whether electricity exported from your battery was originally generated by your panels or taken from the grid. There could be some technicalities involved so it is best that you contact Ofgem before proceeding to install a Battery.
A larger battery may not always result in higher savings. This is because there is a chance that additional capacity might exceed your daily energy needs, leading to unused stored energy and reduced efficiency. Additionally, the cost of a larger battery may outweigh the savings gained from storing excess energy. Therefore, matching battery size to specific energy requirements is important for maximising savings.
You should get a battery with a larger capacity if you’re planning on getting a heat pump or an electric car with a home charger, as these will increase your home’s energy consumption so you may want a battery with a larger capacity to be able to store energy to power these.
Since 1 February 2024, you do not pay any VAT on batteries for solar panels (previously you had to pay 20% VAT, unless you bought it as part of a solar panel system). Now you can install a standalone storage battery or add one to your existing Solar PV system, and you will pay 0% VAT. From 1 April 2027, this is set to increase to 20% VAT.
Unfortunately we will not install a battery in homes with existing solar panels from another installer.
Yes, but it will mean you are still relying on and paying for electricity from the national grid. However, you could pair it with a time-of-use tariff that offers cheaper electricity at certain times of day, which you could use to charge your battery and use when the grid costs more. However, it may take a while to break even on the cost of the battery. Alternatively, you could have a domestic wind turbine installed in your garden, and use a battery to store the energy its generates.
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