May 2, 2024
While the most common option remains solar panels, with more than 183,000 purchases of home batteries last year alone, will they become the norm?
A home battery is exactly as it sounds, a battery which acts like a barrier between your home and the power grid.
The device stores energy for later use in your home, allowing you to run your home on low-cost battery power instead of pulling electricity from the grid during peak hours. In homes with renewables, the battery will take its charge from the available renewable source.
It can be used to power your home, your electric vehicle, and any other devices in your home. How, when and how long the charging capability lasts depends on how your battery is charged.
This technology is a relatively new option which can optimise your power usage, increase efficiency and security in the case of a power cut, and it can lower electricity costs.
You could earn money with a home battery, by selling any unused electricity back to the grid.
The batteries run on in-built software which makes sure it is charged and connected to your house’s electricity supply. This is usually free and lasts the battery's lifetime once it is installed.
The initial cost of a home battery can range into the thousands, meaning it is not an affordable option for everyone, despite saving money overall.
Home batteries can be an expensive investment up front, and prices range depending on the model that you buy. You can purchase a device for as little as £2,500 but they can cost more than £10,000. Typically, the more power it can store, the more expensive it is.
You will also need to buy an inverter, which allows the battery to communicate between its software and the national grid, these cost upwards of £500.
The device reduces the energy you buy from the grid each year, but the number of savings will vary depending on the battery capacity and other factors including how much energy you use, how large your horse is, and how often you interact with the battery.
According to British Gas, the average annual electricity bill for a medium three-bedroom house occupied by two or three people is now £937, meaning a home battery combined with solar panels could save them up to £796 a year.
You should be able to export the electricity you generate and if you decide to, your battery will do this for you. The Government-backed Smart Export Guarantee, launched in January 2020, requires approved suppliers to pay for what you send.
However, you can only export as much as your system generates itself – so you can’t buy energy cheaply from the grid and sell that elsewhere for a profit.
Providers have to buy everything you sell, but they can set the price themselves and it varies.
