Rushmoor Borough Council does not run a battery grant of its own, and we would rather say that in the first line than the last. What the council does is signpost. Its energy-efficiency pages point Farnborough residents to a set of county and national schemes, some live, one closed, one rebranded, each with its own test. This guide takes them one at a time and says plainly which can pay towards a home battery. For the battery itself, its size, cost and connection, see our page on battery storage in Farnborough.
Schemes change faster than web pages. Rushmoor’s list below is as we read it in July 2026, and the national rules are as we read them in October 2026; confirm the position with each scheme before you rely on it for a Farnborough home.
What Rushmoor has committed to
Rushmoor declared a climate emergency in June 2019 with, in the council’s words, the full support of all councillors, and set a 2030 carbon-neutral target. Its current framework is the Climate Change Strategy 2025-2028 and its matching Action Plan 2025-2028. Those documents set the council’s direction. They do not, on their own, put money towards a battery in a Cove semi or a South Farnborough terrace; for that, the council’s housing and energy pages are where the household routes are listed.
The schemes Rushmoor signposts, and which touch a battery
| Scheme signposted by Rushmoor | What it is | Can it pay for a battery? | Status as we read it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Warmer Homes: Local Grant programme | Income-linked home upgrades for privately owned homes at EPC D to G | Only alongside solar PV | National guidance updated 2 July 2026 |
| Hitting the Cold Spots | Hampshire’s home-energy support service | Not stated | Signposted, July 2026 |
| My Home Made Better | Retrofit advice that explicitly covers renewable generation such as solar panels | Advice, not funding | Signposted, July 2026 |
| Home improvement grants | Means-tested, up to £5,000 for heating | No, heating only | Signposted, July 2026 |
| Great British Insulation Scheme | Insulation | No | Closed 31 March 2026 |
Read the battery column carefully. The Warm Homes: Local Grant is the only route on Rushmoor’s list that can pay towards a battery, and only when solar PV goes in with it; a battery on its own is outside it. The tests are narrow by design. The home must be in England and privately owned, by you or a landlord, with an EPC of D to G, and the household must meet one income route: a low-income postcode, a means-tested benefit, or gross household income of £36,000 or less. Councils usually make contact within 10 working days of an application, and arrange a survey only if funding is available, so for a Farnborough household it is a route with a wait rather than a quick fix.
Where Solar Together Hampshire went
Hampshire County Council ran Solar Together with the group-buying firm iChoosr, and by the county’s own figures it had installed over 28,400 solar panels on Hampshire homes by August 2024. The old Solar Together Hampshire address now redirects to Switch Together’s solar and battery pages, and Rushmoor’s own energy-efficiency page does not list the scheme. We have not seen a published date for the next Hampshire round, so we will not suggest one. If a round opens for Farnborough addresses, a group-buy offer and an independent quote on the same specification, battery capacity, inverter, warranty and backup included, are worth putting side by side, ours among them.
Loans and VAT for a Farnborough battery
Two national routes are not grants but still change the sums. The Warm Homes Loan Scheme’s rules, dated September 2026, cap loans at £15,000 for solar PV and £15,000 for an electrical storage battery, and the government pays lenders a grant of up to 20% of the loan to bring the interest down. That makes these lower-interest loans, not zero-interest ones, and we have not verified which lenders are taking consumer applications, so ask any lender directly. Separately, residential battery installations carry 0% VAT until 31 March 2027, whether the battery goes in with panels or on its own, reverting to 5% from 1 April 2027. Our post on VAT on solar panels and batteries covers what counts. For a Farnborough household paying privately, the zero rate is the one saving every battery installation gets.
Owners, landlords and tenants in Rushmoor
Tenure decides who can act. At Census 2021, 60.5% of Rushmoor households owned their home, down from 63.5% in 2011, and private renting rose 3.9 percentage points to 21.5%, a bigger rise than neighbouring Hart saw. The Warm Homes: Local Grant covers privately rented homes as well as owner-occupied ones, but nothing is fixed to a rented home without the landlord’s agreement. Leaseholders in Farnborough’s flats will generally need the freeholder’s consent before anything is fixed to a shared wall. Owner-occupiers in Cove, West Heath or Southwood can usually go straight from a survey to a decision.
The honest summary for Farnborough
For most Farnborough households, a battery is paid for privately, at 0% VAT until 31 March 2027, and the Energy Saving Trust’s national range of £1,500 to £10,000, with a 5 kWh system at around £4,600, is the benchmark to test a quote against. The exceptions are income-eligible homes at EPC D to G fitting solar at the same time, where the Warm Homes: Local Grant may cover both, and households who would rather use a regulated lower-interest loan. DESNZ records about 1,998 solar PV installations of all sizes across Rushmoor at the end of 2025, as first published, and if your home already has panels, a battery added later is zero-rated in the same way.
If a battery without panels is what you have in mind, read battery storage without solar panels first, since the grant route above will not cover it. Our page on solar panels in Farnborough covers the roof side, including Rushmoor’s conservation areas, and solar panels in Hampshire covers the county picture.
Sources: Rushmoor Borough Council, climate change and energy-efficiency pages (read July 2026); Climate Emergency UK CAPE register; Hampshire County Council news, 19 August 2024, and live redirect check of the Solar Together Hampshire address; GOV.UK, Apply for the Warm Homes: Local Grant, and DESNZ guidance updated 2 July 2026; DESNZ, Warm Homes Loan Scheme rules (September 2026); HMRC VAT Notice 708/6; ONS, How life has changed in Rushmoor: Census 2021; Energy Saving Trust, Battery storage (updated 19 August 2026); DESNZ, Renewable electricity by local authority 2014 to 2025 (published 29 September 2026).