(And Is It Worth It?)
In this article, I’m going to talk about how much a solar battery storage system may cost you. There are many different factors that can affect the price and they are worth discussing in detail.
So let’s jump right in.
There are many different factors that may influence the solar battery storage price you pay.
The main factor rests on what size of system it is you want. And because you can get both really small and large systems, this means the price can actually vary massively.
For example, you could get a 3 kWh system for £3,000 — or a 50 kWh system for £30,000.
A typical three bedroom house in the UK is likely to require a 8 kWh solar battery storage system.
Whereas if you live in a house with one or two bedrooms, you might be able to get away with a very small system with 2-4 kWh of capacity.
Now I want to address the other factors that many people think might influence the price, and also debunk some myths.
These other factors include:
Now, let’s take a look at each one of them in more detail.
This is a common factor that is brought up, but really no matter what battery system you go with, the warranty is likely to be 10 years.
That goes for GivEnergy, Growatt, Tesla Powerwall — pretty much any company. The standard warranty period lasts a decade. So although this is a factor that people think affects the overall solar battery storage price, it doesn’t really.
This isn’t really a factor — though people often think that it is. The reason is because in the UK at least, lithium-ion batteries are the only game in town.
Lithium-ion batteries are a lot safer than lead-acid batteries. They also come with warranties that are a lot longer. And because of these reasons, lithium-ion is all the industry is really making at the moment.
So I don’t want to waste your time talking about lead-acid batteries or comparing the two, because lead-acid is slowly being phased out.
It’s possible that this is still a factor in some other countries (if you’re willing to sacrifice safety for savings), but if you’re looking specifically for solar panel battery storage cost UK information, then lithium-ion is all you’ll need to consider.
This might be a factor. It depends on what solar energy equipment supplier it is you choose to get your system from.
Before I go into more detail about this, I want to let you know that at Lr-Renewables we provide FREE installation on all of our products. No matter how difficult the job is, if it’s all under one roof, we will install it at no cost. The cost of installation is NOT a factor with us.
Some suppliers might charge more depending on how difficult the installation job is.
For example, if your electric cupboard is in the middle of the house and your system’s been installed in the loft, that might prove to be a more difficult installation job that could take an entire day to install. It might mean having to run the cables down the house or building and into a particular room.
In contrast to this, the easiest scenario would be an installation in the garage. If you’re getting a solar battery storage system installed in your garage and you’ve got your mains and all your electrics all in one place in the garage and there’s no cables to run, that’s a near perfect situation for the installation team.
In that most ideal scenario, your installation could be completed in an hour — however, generally it will take about two or three hours to install.
However, all of our prices include installation costs, and we don’t try to alter these prices depending on whether it’s difficult or ‘easy’ to install a system.
The only exception would be, say, if you live on a farm and you’ve got a barn that’s a few hundred yards away where you want your solar battery storage system installed — in such a scenario we might have to dig a trench from the barn to the house for the cable. In that case, we would charge an additional fee.
But if the whole battery installation is happening within the same building, there’s no extra charge.
In truth the brand name might also influence the price — but only a little bit. Generally, prices don’t vary too much across the industry.
Batteries tend to have a set amount of storage and, when you compare different brand batteries with the same storage capacity, they tend to work out roughly around the same per kilowatt-hours price.
If they have the same amount of storage and are lithium-ion, they’re pretty much doing the same thing, they’ll just be operating on different software and things like that.
That being said, the GivEnergy brand does tend to be slightly more expensive. The main reason for this is that GivEnergy is a UK-based company and many UK customers prefer to deal with UK businesses (even though their products are manufactured in China).
The UK Government has committed itself to drastically reducing its carbon footprint over the coming decades, and so the future looks bright for homeowners wanting a solar battery storage system.
Let’s look at what you can take advantage of in the meantime:
In recent developments, the UK Government is looking to make it so that battery systems will not have to pay any VAT at all for the next five years.
This is a big game changer.
The 0% VAT rate will apply even to batteries installed after the solar panels themselves have already been installed. The idea is to make it cheaper for homeowners and to encourage them to install their own battery systems.
Actually this zero VAT rule is already in place, having been introduced in spring 2022, but it’s reassuring to know that it will very likely stick around for the foreseeable future.
The UK Government is also looking at how it can work with the private sector to offer affordable loans for both homeowners and small businesses looking to fit solar battery storage systems. So we can expect positive developments in the future.
But, presently, in terms of grants and loans there isn’t a whole lot that I’m aware of at the moment.
We offer finance options on all of our products. Click on anyone of one of our products and you’ll see our price and an estimate monthly price you’ll be expected to pay with finance. Then if you click on the finance option, you’ll be able to choose from 26 different lenders — to find the best deal for you.
I thought I should mention this as so many people ask about it. Essentially a ‘smart export guarantee’ is about exporting solar power energy to the grid and getting paid for it.
A couple of years ago, you’d get about 10-20p per kWh for the energy you send back to the grid. Whereas nowadays you’ll get between 8-10p — which is still OK, but in reality you’re buying it back off the grid at between 25-40p per kWh. So the energy companies won’t give you the same price you’re buying off them for, but it’s something I guess.
If you really want to have a crack at selling energy back to the grid, then the average sized household, on an average 3 kWh system, exporting energy at 50% (which used to be typical) might be expected to save £130 a year. So not a lot really. It’s not really beneficial at the minute.
And don’t worry about some energy suppliers not doing this for you. Every energy supplier in the UK, at least that I’m aware of, should allow you to export excess energy to them.
A far better way to save money, in our opinion, is to get a battery system so that you can make money from energy storage rather than exporting it. So if you’re going to get paid 9p to export it back to the grid, while at the same time paying 30p to use it in the house, you might as well store the energy in your battery at night while the rates are cheaper and then rely on that battery during peak (daytime) hours instead. Because in that situation, you’d potentially be saving 21p per kWh instead.
To give you a general idea, here’s what a homeowner living in a typical / average sized household might be expected to pay across the industry for a 5 kWh size system. But please bear in mind that all these numbers are generalised averages, and the actual price of your system will depend on a number of variables.
| Equipment | Average Industry Cost | Our Average Cost |
|---|---|---|
|
Standard battery (10 year life) |
£3,500 |
£2,500 |
|
Standard hybrid inverter (10 year life) |
£1,250 |
£950 |
|
Solar PV |
£6,900 |
£5,350 |
|
Full cost for initial install (battery, inverter and PV) |
£11,650 |
£8,800 |
And here are industry approximate battery costs for lithium-ion batteries:
| Usable Capacity (kWh) | Industry Estimated Price (Lithium-Ion Batteries) | Our Price (Lithium-Ion Batteries) |
|---|---|---|
|
2-4 kWh |
£3,910 |
£1,970 |
|
4-7 kWh |
£4,788 |
£3,790 |
|
7-9 kWh |
£5,785 |
£5,610 |
|
9-13.5 kWh |
£7,970 |
£7,470 |
Yes — a lot of money actually.
We would say on average, depending on household usage and the cost of the system you buy, you’ll be looking at payback in 4-6 years. And then after that you’re in profit as the batteries will have a 10 year warranty on them.
Let’s say you break even at 5 years. That means you’ll have another 5 years of making a profit. So you will definitely save money in the long run if you buy the right system and at the right price.
A big benefit of battery systems is not so much charging from excess solar but charging from the grid at a nighttime rate.
Today there are a lot of rates where, say between midnight and 4am, you can draw electricity at like a fifth of the price. For this reason alone, we’ve had a lot of customers approach us and buy a battery system on its own, without solar panels. They can then charge their battery system for four or five hours overnight, and draw from that power throughout the day.
So for example, say your daytime rate is 40p per kWh and your nighttime rate is 7p per kWh. In high usage instances, this could make a difference of saving up to £5.60 a day, or £2,000 a year, or £10,000 over 5 years in savings.
To put this into perspective, even a modest 20 kWh solar battery storage system would cost you no more than £8-9,000.
These cost-savings are attractive to anyone looking to reduce their electricity bills, and especially to people with electric cars / electric vehicles.
This Lux 4.8kWh Uhome Battery Storage Bundle would suit a small house perfectly. It includes:
Our price: £4,200 (installation included)
You can check it out here: Lux 4.8kWh Uhome Battery Storage Bundle.
This GivEnergy 3kw AC Coupled + 8.2kWh Battery Storage Bundle is ideal for most house sizes across the UK. It includes:
Our price: £1,437.50 (installation included)
You can check it out here: GivEnergy 3kw AC Coupled + 8.2kWh Battery Storage Bundle.
This Lux Double SQPOD + 24kWh Uhome Battery Storage Bundle is well built to deliver energy to very largest houses in Britain. It includes:
Our price: £11,650.00 (installation included)
You can check it out here: Lux Double SQPOD + 24kWh Uhome Battery Storage Bundle.
This battery has a large storage capacity, but also has a higher charge and discharge battery capacity rate. So it will charge and discharge at around 7 kilowatts, whereas the other two (above) are about 3 kilowatts. So basically you can pump out more power quicker, as well as having more storage.
Yes. Because it’s only one trip to the site, you can do the whole job in one and get your solar panel system fitted at the same time. We do offer solar panel installations, but we don’t promote it a lot on the website. Half of our enquiries are solar panel enquiries, and you can check out our extras to find our solar panels and we can do this for you.
No. You can store electricity bought from the grid even without solar panels. And you can still take advantage of the cheaper off-peak tariff rates, by drawing power in the early hours of the morning. Only (obviously) you won’t be able to generate your own renewable energy without solar panels.
I hope this article has made it clear how much you should be expected to pay for a solar battery storage system in the UK, in addition to clearing up a few myths. I hope it has made it clear that a home battery system is both cost-effective in the long run and a great way to avoid the higher energy bill prices that accompany peak times.
If you are interested in a battery energy storage system, what you see is what you get on our website. If you live in England and Wales and are interested in reducing your carbon footprint, while making a bit of profit in the meantime, then please check out our battery systems, solar hybrid inverters and domestic lithium batteries here.
Director & Operations Manager
Luke has almost a decade of experience in the renewable energy industry. He started out as an approved installer of battery systems and solar panels, working for a number of different companies. Today, he oversees the sale of several key products and installations as director of Lr-Renewables.
Luke is also a qualified electrician. In his spare time he enjoys playing rugby, watching football, and spending time with his family.
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Unit 118, Hume Avenue,Tilbury
RM18 8DX
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