Electric cars are no longer rare on Horley’s driveways. DVLA records about 5,110 privately kept plug-in vehicles across Reigate and Banstead at the end of June 2026, up from 4,051 a year earlier, a rise of about 26% on our arithmetic. Those are borough-wide figures for cars registered to private keepers, not a count of Horley homes, but they explain why more households here are asking how an EV, solar panels and a home battery fit together. For the battery decision on its own, see our page on battery storage in Horley.
Three different jobs
It helps to separate the three. Solar panels make electricity during daylight. A home battery stores some of it, or cheap overnight grid power, for later in the day. An EV is a large, flexible load that can be charged whenever it is plugged in. Getting value from all three is mostly about timing: using the roof’s output when it is there, and filling the car when grid power is cheapest. On a Horley semi, the town’s most common home at 34.3% of households, that usually means one array, one modest battery and one smart charger on the drive.
What the roof can give the car
Our PVGIS 5.3 run for Horley puts a 4 kWp, south-facing, unshaded array at about 4,021 kWh a year. Monthly, that is about 491 kWh in June, roughly 16 kWh a day, and about 138 kWh in December, under 5 kWh a day. A June surplus can meaningfully top up a car that is at home during the day, especially with a charger that follows solar output. In December the roof barely covers the house. That is why EV owners in Horley still do most winter charging from the grid, and why the tariff matters more than the panels in those months. For scale, a 60 kWh charge at the October to December 2026 price-cap unit rate of 26.32p per kWh costs about £15.79 on our arithmetic; off-peak EV tariffs price overnight units well below that, and suppliers set those rates.
Where the home battery fits
A home battery is usually much smaller than a car’s, and the Energy Saving Trust gives a typical home system of perhaps 10 kWh. So the home battery is rarely what fills the car. Its job is to keep the house running on stored solar or cheap overnight power through the evening peak, while the car charges at the cheapest time. On an off-peak EV tariff, a battery can charge overnight alongside the car and supply the house the next evening, which is when it earns its keep in winter. The Trust says there is no exact formula: your own evening use and tariff decide the size.
The fuse and the paperwork
A 7.4 kW home charger draws 32 A continuously. Most homes have a 60 A, 80 A or 100 A main fuse, and load management, a sensor on the incoming supply that turns the charger down when the house is busy, usually avoids a supply upgrade. Our guide on whether your fuse will take a 7 kW EV charger covers that in detail. Horley is on UK Power Networks’ South Eastern network, and the installer notifies UKPN of a new chargepoint as well as of any solar or battery system; solar and batteries are notified under G98 up to 16 A per phase, with G99 approval first above that. Every home chargepoint sold in Great Britain has had to be smart since 30 June 2022.
VAT and grants differ for each part
Residential solar panels and batteries carry 0% VAT until 31 March 2027, then 5%. A home EV charger is not on HMRC’s energy-saving materials list, so it is standard-rated at 20%. Grants differ too. Owner-occupiers of houses get no government chargepoint grant. Renters and people who own and live in flats can get 75% of the cost, up to £500 per socket, with private off-street or allocated parking; our guide to who qualifies for the EV chargepoint grant has the conditions. With 72.1% of Horley households owning their home at the 2011 census, most here will be paying for the charger themselves.
Westvale Park, The Acres and older streets
Horley’s newer homes change the starting point. Westvale Park (1,510 homes, 1,130 occupied by May 2022) and The Acres (710 homes, built 2010 to 2016) were built to recent standards, so the survey there is mostly about where the charger, inverter and battery go and how the cables reach the consumer unit. Check your title deeds or management company for covenants on external alterations before a survey. On the older streets of Meath Green, Court Lodge and Langshott, the questions are about the age of the consumer unit and where a battery can sit.
Our solar panels Horley page covers the conservation areas and the town’s growth, our home EV charger installation page covers chargers, and the solar panels Surrey hub covers the county. If an EV changes nothing about whether a battery suits you, we will say so.
Sources: DfT and DVLA, VEH0142 licensed plug-in vehicles (2026 Q2, published 23 September 2026); European Commission JRC, PVGIS 5.3 (SARAH3, 2005–2023); Ofgem, energy price cap October to December 2026; HMRC VAT Notice 708/6; GOV.UK, Changes to electric vehicle chargepoint grant schemes from 1 April 2026 (updated 7 July 2026); Electric Vehicles (Smart Charge Points) Regulations 2021; Energy Saving Trust, Battery storage (updated 19 August 2026); ENA EREC G98 Issue 2; UK Power Networks licence boundaries (December 2024); Surrey-i 2011 Census parish summary, Horley; Reigate & Banstead Borough Council, What has been delivered in Horley.