Battery storage — Sussex
Battery Storage Horsham
Home batteries for Horsham homes, with or without solar panels — sized from your actual usage, with the costs, the seasons and the power-cut reality explained before you commit to anything.
Battery storage in Horsham means quite different jobs at either end of town. In the new neighbourhoods at Mowbray, Highwood Village and Kilnwood Vale the house is modern and a battery usually goes in the garage or on a side wall; around the Causeway, where roofs are laid in Horsham Stone and the town centre is a conservation area, a battery can still earn its place even where panels should not go, by storing cheaper off-peak electricity. If the roof is your starting point, read solar panels in Horsham first; this page is about the battery itself.
What a battery is for is moving electricity in time: from midday to evening, or from a cheap overnight rate to the teatime peak. The demand side is changing fast in the district: DVLA records 5,228 privately kept plug-in vehicles across Horsham district at the end of June 2026, up from 3,924 a year earlier, and a car on the drive changes the evening load a battery is sized against. Our battery storage guide explains the products and the sizing; below is what is particular to Horsham.
Quick answer
Battery storage in Horsham:
- Cost: the Energy Saving Trust puts home battery storage at £1,500 to £10,000, with a 5 kWh system at around £4,600; your own figure comes from a survey of your usage.
- Seasons: PVGIS estimates a 4 kWp south-facing array in Horsham makes about 503 kWh in June but about 140 kWh in December — size the battery for your evenings, not for summer.
- VAT: residential battery installations carry 0% VAT until 31 March 2027, then 5% from 1 April 2027.
- Grid: central Horsham is on UK Power Networks's South Eastern Power Networks network; the installer notifies or applies to the operator depending on the system's size.
- Power cuts: a standard grid-tied battery shuts down when the grid does; backup needs to be designed in from the start, and we will tell you whether it is worth it.
- Who fits it: HCE is a NAPIT member (73495), MCS-certified for solar PV and battery storage via NAPIT, and a HIES Consumer Code member.
Figures: Energy Saving Trust (batteries, updated 19 August 2026) · HMRC VAT Notice 708/6 · PVGIS 5.3 (European Commission Joint Research Centre) · Ofgem RIIO-ED2 annual report 2024/25. Each is cited in full further down this page.
Where a battery fits in Horsham's homes
The 2021 Census makes Horsham district a house-led market: 37.2% of its 62,371 households live in detached homes, 26.9% in semis and 17.1% in terraces, and 72.3% own their home. In the 20th-century suburbs of Roffey, Holbrook, Littlehaven and Tower Hill that usually gives three good places to look: an attached garage, a utility room, or the side wall nearest the meter, keeping the cable run to the consumer unit short. Lofts are the fallback rather than the plan, because they swing hot and cold and are awkward to service. A mid-terrace with no side access is the harder case: the unit has to be carried through the house to a rear wall or an outbuilding.
Purpose-built flats are 15.6% of the district's households, and there a battery needs the freeholder's or management company's agreement, plus the landlord's if you rent. In the historic core around the Causeway, with its Horsham Stone roofs, the town centre is a conservation area (one of 39 in the district): keep to an indoor unit or a wall-mounted one on a rear or side elevation; if the house is listed, speak to Horsham District Council before anything is fixed to the building. On the big new estates, Mowbray (2,750 homes north of the A264) and Kilnwood Vale at Faygate (2,500), read the deeds or ask the estate management company about external equipment before a unit goes on a front wall.
What a Horsham roof generates through the year
A battery earns its keep by moving daytime generation into the evening, so the shape of the year matters more than the annual total. We ran the European Commission's PVGIS 5.3 (European Commission Joint Research Centre) for Horsham itself, for a 4 kWp array at 35° facing due south with 14% system losses:
- 4,099 kWh a year in total
- 503 kWh in June and 501 kWh in July
- 140 kWh in December and 158 kWh in January
In summer a modest array fills a battery most days; in midwinter it rarely will, and the battery's job shifts to storing cheaper off-peak electricity if your tariff offers it. That is why we size storage from your evening usage and tariff, not from the sunniest month. East- or west-facing roofs and shading change these figures more than the town does — which is what the survey measures.
Method: PVGIS 5.3 (European Commission Joint Research Centre), 4 kWp, 35° tilt, due south, 14% system losses, building-mounted, PVGIS-SARAH3, 2005–2023, monthly output, run 15 October 2026.
The grid and power cuts in Horsham
Horsham sits in UK Power Networks' South Eastern Power Networks licence area, so UKPN, not your energy supplier, is the operator that has to know about your battery. A system rated up to 16 A per phase (3.68 kW) is notified under G98: the installer tells UKPN before commissioning or within 28 days after it. Anything above that, which includes a 5 kW hybrid inverter, needs a G99 application approved before work starts, although UKPN says it approves automatically where the maximum export, after any export limitation, is under 5 kW. The threshold is about the inverter's output, not how many kWh the battery stores. If you live in one of the villages towards the edge of the district, the Energy Networks Association's postcode lookup confirms your operator.
Be clear on one point before you buy: a standard grid-tied battery shuts down when the grid does, by design, so it does not feed a network that is meant to be dead. Keeping a Horsham home running through a power cut needs backup designed in from the start, usually a backup-capable inverter or gateway and a separate circuit for the essentials, at extra cost, and adding it later can mean changing the inverter. Whether it is worth paying for depends on what must stay on, whether that is a home office in Southwater or a freezer in Broadbridge Heath, and we will say plainly if it is not.
Ofgem's reported 2024/25 figures for South Eastern Power Networks show about 42.2 supply interruptions per 100 customers and about 30.4 minutes lost per customer over the year, against 39.7 and 35.1 across Great Britain. Source: Ofgem — RIIO-2 Electricity Distribution: annual report 2024 to 2025, supplementary datafile, sheet "Ch2 outputs - reliability" (CI and CML performance, planned and unplanned).
Local facts, sourced
Horsham and home batteries in numbers
Every figure below comes from a named public source.
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DESNZ records about 4,976 solar PV installations of all sizes across Horsham district at the end of 2025, with 72.67 MW of capacity between them (rooftops through to ground-mounted sites, not domestic only).
Source: DESNZ, Renewable electricity by local authority 2014 to 2025 (published 29 September 2026), solar PV sites and capacity at the end of 2025, as first published
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DVLA records 5,228 privately kept plug-in vehicles across Horsham district at the end of June 2026, up from 3,924 a year earlier, a rise of about a third.
Source: DfT and DVLA, VEH0142 licensed plug-in vehicles by local authority, privately kept, end of June 2026 against end of June 2025 (published 23 September 2026); percentage change is our arithmetic
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DESNZ estimates that 22.57% of homes in Horsham district have no mains gas connection (2024).
Source: DESNZ, Subnational estimates of properties not connected to the gas network, 2024 (published 18 December 2025)
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PVGIS puts a 4 kWp south-facing array in Horsham at about 140 kWh in December against 503 kWh in June: December is about 28% of June, or roughly 4.5 kWh a day, less than a 5 kWh battery holds.
Source: European Commission JRC, PVGIS 5.3 (4 kWp, 35°, due south, 14% losses, building-mounted, PVGIS-SARAH3 2005–2023), run 15 October 2026; ratio and daily averages are our arithmetic
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Horsham is in UK Power Networks' South Eastern Power Networks licence area, so G98 notifications and G99 applications for batteries go to UKPN.
Source: UK Power Networks, licence boundaries (Open Data Portal, December 2024); NESO, GIS boundaries for GB DNO licence areas (May 2024)
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Census 2021: of Horsham district's 62,371 households, 37.2% live in detached homes and 26.9% in semis, and 72.3% own their home (39.3% outright, 33.0% with a mortgage).
Source: ONS Census 2021, tables TS044 (accommodation type) and TS054 (tenure), Horsham district, via Nomis
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In the 2021 round of Solar Together Sussex, the group-buying scheme West Sussex County Council led with iChoosr, Sussex homeowners saved an average of 37% on battery storage; its successor, Switch Together, said on 17 September 2026 that it was not yet active in Horsham.
Source: WSCC decision ECC11 (24/25); Rother District Council Solar Together news; Switch Together, Horsham solar panels page (read 17 September 2026)
Data last reviewed: October 2026
What a home battery costs in Horsham
The honest national anchor is the Energy Saving Trust's: home battery storage ranges from £1,500 to £10,000, a 5 kWh system costs around £4,600, and a typical home system might be 10 kWh. Energy Saving Trust also says there is no exact formula — sizing comes from your own consumption, that a battery's typical lifespan is about 10 to 12 years, and that fitting storage at the same time as panels costs less than a separate visit later.
Residential battery installations carry 0% VAT until 31 March 2027, reverting to 5% from 1 April 2027. Export payments under the Smart Export Guarantee are set by each supplier and must be above zero — they change on short notice, which is why we never print one. Our own price comes from a survey of your usage, tariff and wiring, and arrives itemised — the battery, the inverter or hybrid unit, the network notification, commissioning and warranties as separate lines.
When we would tell you not to: if your evening usage is low, if your tariff gives you little difference between peak and off-peak, or if a smaller solar array would already cover what you use in daylight, a battery can take a long time to pay its way — and we will say so rather than sell you one.
Sources: Energy Saving Trust — Battery storage (updated 19 August 2026) · HMRC — VAT on energy-saving materials and heating equipment (VAT Notice 708/6) · Ofgem — Smart Export Guarantee.
More for Horsham homes
Most batteries are fitted alongside panels, so start with what solar panels in Horsham would generate on your roof; for the wider picture, see how we approach homes across Sussex, or our main battery storage guide for the products and how sizing works. For a longer local read, see Got an EV in Horsham? How solar and a battery pair up.
We also cover battery storage in Crawley, home batteries in Cranleigh and Horley battery installation advice.
Horsham battery questions
Can I fit a battery in a Horsham flat?
Sometimes, but the decision is rarely yours alone. Purpose-built flats are 15.6% of Horsham district's households (Census 2021), and in almost every case the battery needs the freeholder's or management company's written agreement, plus the landlord's if you rent. A shared hallway or bin store is rarely somewhere a freeholder will agree to, so the realistic options are a private balcony wall, a private garage, or not at all. A battery also needs somewhere to charge from: without panels it stores off-peak grid electricity, which only pays if your tariff has a real gap between cheap and peak hours.
Will a battery keep my Horsham home running in a power cut?
Not unless it is designed to. A standard grid-tied battery switches off when the grid fails, the same as the panels. Backup needs a backup-capable inverter or gateway and usually a separate circuit for the essentials, at extra cost, and it should be decided before installation. Your network operator in Horsham is UK Power Networks (South Eastern Power Networks), and it is UKPN, not your supplier, you contact about a power cut. If backup matters to you, say so at the survey and we will price it as a separate line.
Is a battery worth it with an EV in Horsham district?
It can be, but size the battery for the house, not the car. DVLA records 5,228 privately kept plug-in vehicles across Horsham district (end of June 2026), up from 3,924 a year earlier. Most EV owners charge the car overnight on a cheaper rate where their tariff has one; the battery's job is the house's evening use. One cost point is easy to miss: a home charger installation carries 20% VAT, unlike the battery's lower rate set out above. In the Mowbray and Kilnwood Vale new-builds, check whether the developer already fitted a charger before you price one.
Is there a group-buy scheme for batteries in Horsham?
There has been. Solar Together Sussex, run by West Sussex County Council with iChoosr, covered Horsham, and in its 2021 round Sussex homeowners saved an average of 37% on battery storage. The original contract expired in August 2024; the successor scheme trades as Switch Together, and when we checked on 17 September 2026 its Horsham page said it was not active in the area yet. If a round opens, compare its battery price with an independent quote on the same specification, including the inverter and any backup.