What is solar panel battery storage?

This relatively new technology may be worth considering if you generate your own energy at home with solar panels but want to use it outside daylight hours – or plan to start doing so.

It may also be worth considering if you have a time-of-use energy tariff that means you could charge a battery cheaply at off-peak times.

Is solar battery storage right for my home?

If you have solar PV panels, or are planning to install them, then using home batteries to store electricity you’ve generated will help you to maximise the amount of renewable energy you use. In fact, 60% of people who have, or would consider, a home battery told us the reason was so they could use more of the electricity generated by their solar panels.

Home-energy storage will also reduce the electricity you use from the grid, and cut your energy bills. If your home is off-grid solar system, it can help to reduce your use of fossil fuel back-up generators.

Even without solar panels, you may be looking to make use of time-of-use tariffs with a battery. These let you store up electricity while it’s cheap (overnight, for example) so you can use it during peak times.

A few energy companies have launched these already, and we expect to see more of them as they can help to balance energy supply and demand, and reduce the need for additional fossil-fuel generation at peak times.

If, for example, it's a windy night and lots of wind turbines are generating electricity for the grid that no-one is using, it makes sense to make the most of that with battery storage.