Solar Battery Storage & Inverters

Store excess solar energy and manage your home's power more effectively with reliable battery storage and inverter systems built around your usage.

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EnSmart SolarAll battery and inverter cabinets on a completed Home Comfort Enterprises installation

A battery is the piece that makes solar work around your life rather than around the weather. Panels generate most at midday; most homes use most in the evening. Storage bridges that gap — and it can also charge from the grid at cheap overnight rates, which is why batteries increasingly make sense even on cloudy weeks.

HCE Ltd installs battery storage and hybrid inverters as part of new solar systems and as retrofits to existing ones. We're MCS-certified, NAPIT-registered and HIES Consumer Code members, and the equipment on this page isn't a stock photo — it's an EnSmart SolarAll system photographed on a real HCE installation.

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Quick answer

Solar battery storage:

Stores your daytime generation so it powers the house in the evening, when homes use most
Battery and inverter warranties are bounded — typically around a decade from the manufacturer, never “lifetime”
0% VAT until 31 March 2027 — including standalone and retrofit batteries, zero-rated since 1 February 2024
Pairs with Smart Export Guarantee income: Ofgem data shows exporting households averaged 13p per kWh in 2024–25
We install EnSmart SolarAll systems, with Sigenergy, Tesla Powerwall 3 and EcoFlow compared across our product pages
Fitted by a HIES Consumer Code member, NAPIT registered and MCS certified

Figures: Ofgem / HMRC VAT notice 708/6 / manufacturer datasheets, July 2026.

Why add battery storage?

Three honest reasons, in the order they usually matter.

Use more of what you generate

Without storage, any solar power you're not using at that exact moment is exported to the grid — and export rates are almost always lower than the price you pay to buy electricity back in the evening. A battery captures your midday surplus so it powers your kettle, oven and washing machine at 7pm. That gap between the export rate and the import rate is where most of a battery's value lives: every stored unit you use yourself is a unit you didn't buy at full price.

Play the tariff game

Time-of-use tariffs price electricity differently through the day — cheap in the small hours, expensive at teatime. A battery can charge from the grid overnight at the low rate and discharge through the expensive peak, whatever the weather did. In winter, when solar generation is at its lowest, this is often the battery's main job. If you drive an electric car, the same off-peak window can charge the EV too.

Backup — with an honest caveat

Here's the part many sales pages skip: a standard grid-tied solar system, with or without a battery, shuts down during a power cut. That's a mandatory safety feature that protects engineers working on the lines. Keeping selected circuits running in an outage needs a system specifically designed for backup. Some hardware supports this — the EnSmart SolarAll-H inverter range we install lists a built-in UPS function with a 10-millisecond switchover on its manufacturer specification — but whether backup makes sense for you depends on the system design, and we'll give you a straight answer at the survey rather than a vague promise.

What solar battery storage costs

The honest national anchor is the Energy Saving Trust's. Its battery storage advice, updated 19 August 2026, puts home storage at £1,500 to £10,000, with a 5 kWh system costing around £4,600 and a typical home system at 10 kWh. Installed residential systems carry 0% VAT until 31 March 2027, reverting to 5% from 1 April 2027 — and since 1 February 2024 that zero rate covers a battery fitted on its own, not just one fitted alongside new panels.

Five things move a quote away from that national figure, and a good quote shows all five:

Usable capacity — the kWh you can actually cycle, which is not always the headline number on the box.
Whether an inverter is part of the job — a hybrid replacement costs more than an AC-coupled battery bolted alongside a healthy existing inverter.
Backup — keeping circuits live through a power cut needs extra hardware and extra wiring, and it is the single most common reason two quotes differ.
Where it goes — cable runs, a garage versus a first-floor cupboard, and whether the wall can carry the weight.
The grid route — a system inside the G98 limit is notified after commissioning; a larger one needs a G99 application approved first, which is time, not just paperwork.

The Energy Saving Trust also makes the point we would rather you heard early: fitting storage at the same time as panels is cheaper than a second visit later, because the team is already on site. Our own number comes from a survey of your roof, your bills and your tariff — the figures above are the benchmark you should hold that number against. There is a fuller breakdown on our solar battery storage cost page.

Will it pay for itself?

A battery earns its keep on the gap between two rates: what you pay to import a unit of electricity in the evening, and what you are paid to export the same unit at midday. Every stored unit you use yourself is bought at the export rate and spent at the import rate, and the wider that gap, the faster a battery pays. Export rates under the Smart Export Guarantee are set by each supplier and must be above zero (Ofgem's rule), they change on short notice, and that is why this page never prints one.

Two honest caveats, both the Energy Saving Trust's. Savings "can be significant, but won't always be enough on their own to justify the cost of the battery". And a battery running a heat pump or a time-of-use tariff will usually save more than one whose only job is holding surplus solar. If your evenings are quiet and your tariff is flat, a smaller battery — or no battery — may be the better answer, and we would rather say so at the survey than after a deposit.

How batteries pair with solar

Plain-English version. There are two main routes, and which one suits you mostly depends on whether you already have panels.

Hybrid inverter (usual for new installations)

A hybrid inverter does two jobs in one box: it converts your panels' DC output into usable AC power, and it manages battery charging and discharging. One unit, one installation, tidy wiring. This is the arrangement in our SolarAll installation photo — cabinets housing the inverter and battery storage together. The SolarAll-H units are IP65-rated on the manufacturer's specification, meaning they're sealed against dust and water jets and are suitable for indoor or outdoor mounting, which gives real flexibility over where the kit lives.

AC-coupled battery (usual for retrofits)

If you already have solar with a working inverter, an AC-coupled battery system adds storage with its own built-in inverter alongside your existing setup. Your original system carries on untouched — including any legacy feed-in-tariff arrangement — and the battery catches what would have been exported.

Neither route is “better”; they're tools for different starting points. What matters is that the sizing and control settings match how your household actually uses power — which is design work, not catalogue shopping.

Adding a battery to an existing solar system

If you had panels installed years ago, a retrofit battery is often the single biggest upgrade available to you. Systems installed under the old feed-in tariff typically export a lot of what they generate; a battery redirects that surplus into your own evenings.

The tax treatment recently improved, and plenty of older articles are out of date on this: since 1 February 2024, battery storage qualifies for 0% VAT even when installed on its own — retrofitted to existing solar or as a standalone grid-charging battery — not just when it's fitted alongside new panels. The zero rate on energy-saving materials runs until 31 March 2027, after which it reverts to 5%. (HMRC's VAT notice is in our sources.)

A retrofit survey covers your existing inverter's age and health, your generation and usage pattern, where the battery can physically and safely be mounted, and whether AC-coupling or a hybrid-inverter swap is the more sensible route. If your existing kit is nearing the end of its life, replacing the inverter and adding storage in one job can be the tidier answer — and if a battery genuinely wouldn't pay its way on your usage, we'll tell you that instead.

The equipment: EnSmart SolarAll, photographed on a real HCE job

The storage cabinets pictured on this page are EnSmart SolarAll units installed by HCE — real equipment on a real UK installation, not a manufacturer render.

EnSmart Power is a UK-headquartered power-electronics manufacturer (Braintree, Essex) specialising in energy storage and power protection. Their published SolarAll-H hybrid inverter range covers 3–6 kW single-phase models on the datasheet we hold, with 10–20 kW three-phase models above them and a 10 kW single-phase unit now on the ENA type-test register; the datasheet states a maximum efficiency of 97.5% (the marketing site's "99%" is not in the spec table) and that IP65 indoor/outdoor rating. The inverters pair with EnSmart's modular ELV lithium battery packs, which the manufacturer lists from around 5 kWh upwards — the wall-mounted ELV-W units come in 5.12 kWh and 10.24 kWh sizes (the floor-standing ELV-F range adds 15 kWh and 20 kWh) and are rated on the datasheet for more than 6,000 charge cycles, using lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO4) cells. Be precise about certificates: the ELV-W datasheet lists CE and UN38.3; the wider UL1973, IEC62619 and UL9540A set belongs to the ELV-F and EHV-S ranges.

Modular matters in practice: storage can be sized to your usage now and expanded later, rather than forcing a single oversized purchase on day one.

See the EnSmart range we install

What size battery do I need?

The honest answer: the right size is set by your evening and overnight usage, not by the biggest number on a brochure.

A useful reference point: Ofgem's typical household figure is 2,500 kWh of electricity a year — roughly 7 kWh a day, much of it outside daylight hours. That's why mid-single-figure battery capacities suit many homes: enough to carry a typical evening, small enough to actually get filled by your panels most days. Households with high evening usage, an EV charging at home or a heat pump often justify more — and modular packs like the ELV range make "start sensible, expand if needed" a real strategy rather than a sales line.

Geography shifts the pattern too: solar and battery systems across Surrey tend to be designed around commuter homes that sit empty until evening, battery storage for Sussex homes can lean on the coast's strong summer generation, and for Hampshire's off-gas-grid homes stored power displaces oil or LPG heating rather than just peak-rate electricity.

Oversizing is the classic mistake. A battery that your panels rarely fill, and your evenings rarely empty, is capital sitting idle on a wall. At the survey we look at your actual bills and usage pattern and size accordingly — and we'd rather quote you a smaller system that works hard than a bigger one that doesn't.

Curious what a battery changes for your bill? Flip the battery switch on our savings calculator and watch the self-use number move.

Start with a conversation

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The ranges we install, and what separates them

Five battery lines, and the choice between them is less about brand than about three questions: how much power you need at once, whether you want backup, and whether you would rather buy capacity in one lump or add to it later.

Tesla Powerwall 3 — 13.5 kWh in one unit with the solar inverter built in, up to 11.04 kW output, and the most mature whole-home backup arrangement of the five. Its warranty carries a condition about who supplies and installs it that is worth reading before you buy from anyone.
Sigenergy SigenStor — modular from a single 5 kWh unit, so a household that is unsure can start small and stack later.
Fox ESS battery — a widely-installed mid-market range, usually AC-coupled on retrofits.
EcoFlow PowerOcean — 5 kWh modules with a long published warranty term.
EnSmart — the SolarAll-H hybrid inverters and ELV battery packs in the photograph above, from a manufacturer based in Braintree, Essex.

One thing we check on every brand and rarely see mentioned elsewhere: the Energy Networks Association publishes a type-test register of inverters and storage devices, and it records compliance per model and firmware version, not per manufacturer. It is the register your network operator's paperwork leans on, so we check the entry for the exact model going on your wall before the connection application goes in.

Warranties: what's actually promised

Battery and inverter warranties are bounded, and you should treat any "lifetime" language you see elsewhere with suspicion. A typical manufacturer battery warranty runs for a fixed number of years or a stated amount of charge cycles or energy throughput, whichever comes first — the written document is what counts, not the headline.

On the EnSmart kit specifically, we'll be precise about what's published: the ELV-W battery datasheet states more than 6,000 cycles and a 15-year design life — a design-life figure, which is not the same thing as a warranty. The same datasheet does publish warranty terms: a five-year product warranty and a ten-year performance warranty. EnSmart's other website describes it simply as "a 10-year warranty", and where a manufacturer's own pages disagree we put the exact terms in writing with your quote rather than pick the better-sounding one.

That's also worth remembering when comparing quotes from anyone, including us: the question isn't "how long do batteries last" in the abstract — it's "what does the written warranty promise, and who honours it".

Battery storage FAQs

Will my battery keep the lights on in a power cut?

Only if the system is specifically designed for backup. Standard grid-tied systems — panels, battery and all — shut down in an outage as a mandatory safety measure. Backup capability needs hardware that supports it (the SolarAll-H range lists a built-in UPS function on its specification sheet) plus a design that wires selected circuits to stay live. If outage protection matters to you, say so at the survey and we’ll design and price for it honestly.

Can I add a battery to my existing solar panels?

Yes, in almost all cases. An AC-coupled battery works alongside your existing inverter without disturbing it, or the retrofit can replace an ageing inverter with a hybrid unit and add storage in one job. Retrofit batteries also now qualify for 0% VAT (until 31 March 2027), which meaningfully changes the sums on older systems that export heavily.

Can the battery charge from the grid, not just from solar?

Yes — and in winter that’s often its main role. On a time-of-use tariff the battery fills at the cheap overnight rate and covers your expensive peak hours, working alongside whatever your panels contribute. It’s the same logic that makes overnight EV charging cheap, applied to the whole house.

How long do home batteries last?

Battery life is measured in charge cycles rather than years alone — one full charge and discharge is a cycle, and the ELV-W packs we install are rated by their manufacturer at more than 6,000 of them on the datasheet (EnSmart’s marketing page says up to 8,000 — we quote the datasheet). Real-world lifespan depends on how hard the battery works daily. The honest yardstick is the written warranty: a bounded promise of years or cycles from the manufacturer, which we’ll show you before you commit.

Where will the battery actually go?

Where it can go depends on the equipment, and the ratings are not interchangeable: the SolarAll-H inverter is IP65 and rated for indoor or outdoor mounting, while the wall-mounted ELV-W battery is IP50 — indoor only, so a garage, utility room or understairs cupboard. EnSmart’s floor-standing ELV-F packs are IP55 and rated for indoor use or outdoors away from direct sunlight. Placement has safety and performance rules around ventilation, temperature and cable runs, so the exact spot is agreed at the survey rather than guessed from a brochure.

How much does solar battery storage cost?

The Energy Saving Trust, updated 19 August 2026, puts home storage between £1,500 and £10,000, with a 5 kWh system around £4,600 and a typical home system at 10 kWh. Installed prices sit well above bare hardware prices you will see online — a battery on a shelf is not an installed, certified, warrantied system with the grid paperwork done — and the gap is mostly labour, protective devices, the DNO application and the certification that keeps your export tariff valid. Residential installations carry 0% VAT until 31 March 2027, reverting to 5% from 1 April 2027 under HMRC Notice 708/6. Our figure comes from a survey and arrives itemised; there is a fuller breakdown on our solar battery storage cost page.

What size battery do I actually need?

There is no formula, and the Energy Saving Trust says so plainly — it publishes a typical home figure of 10 kWh and then tells you the number depends on your own circumstances. The practical method is to look at what you use after dark and in the early morning, because that is the window a battery covers, then check how much surplus your panels realistically produce to fill it. A battery your panels never fill, or your evenings never empty, is capital sitting on a wall. We size from your bills and half-hourly data where you have it.

Is there a grant for battery storage?

Sometimes, and the rules are specific. The government’s Warm Homes: Local Grant can fund battery storage, but the DESNZ guidance local authorities work to (updated June 2026) allows it only alongside existing or newly installed solar PV, and requires an MCS-certified installation to MCS 3012 with PAS 63100 and PAS 2035 followed. Batteries were added to the scheme in June 2025, paused in November 2025 and reinstated on 2 February 2026, so check the current position with your council rather than an article. ECO4 is the clean negative: its own guidance scores battery storage at zero, so it will not pay for one. We are not a grant broker — we will tell you what we know and point you at the council.

Is a battery worth it without solar panels?

It can be, if you’re on (or willing to move to) a time-of-use tariff: the battery buys cheap overnight electricity and spends it during peak hours. Standalone batteries also qualify for the 0% VAT rate until March 2027. Whether the arithmetic works depends on your tariff and usage — bring us a recent bill and we’ll tell you either way.

See our FAQs

Curious whether a battery would actually pay its way in your home?

Send us a recent electricity bill and we'll give you an honest read: sizing, siting, realistic figures and a written quote with the warranty terms spelled out. If it doesn't stack up for your usage, we'll say so. No pressure, just clear advice.

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