Stevenage did not stop at its own buildings. When the borough council declared a climate emergency on 12 June 2019, it set a target for the town itself, not only the council, to reach net-zero emissions by 2030. A target is not a grant, though, and a household weighing up a battery in Bedwell or Great Ashby needs to know which schemes actually exist, which are closed and which come with conditions.
This guide sets out each route as it stood when we checked in October 2026. For where a battery fits in a new-town terrace, the UK Power Networks paperwork and what happens in a power cut, see our Stevenage battery storage page.
What the council has committed to
After the 2019 declaration, the council published a Climate Change Strategy in September 2020, co-produced after consultation with residents and stakeholder groups, and reports progress on its action plan through the Stevenage Climate Action Plan website. Stevenage was designated the first new town on 11 November 1946, and its target covers the whole of that town, from the Old Town to the post-war neighbourhoods. None of this pays for a household battery directly. What it does is explain why the council has taken part in the schemes below.
Group buying: closed for now
The council brought Solar Together Hertfordshire to residents in partnership with the Hertfordshire Climate Change and Sustainability Partnership and iChoosr, a group-buying company. The 2025 round’s deadline was extended to 25 April 2025. On 15 October 2026 the scheme, now trading as Switch Together, said it was not active in Stevenage and invited residents to register for the next round.
If a round reopens in Stevenage, registering and getting an independent quote are not mutually exclusive. The useful comparison is like for like: the same panels, the same inverter, the same battery capacity and the same warranties. A group price for a different specification tells you little.
The Warm Homes: Local Grant and the battery rule
The grant that does exist is income-linked. Stevenage was allocated £1.5 million of Warm Homes: Local Grant funding and works with the National Energy Foundation to deliver it. The council’s page lists insulation and solar panels among the measures, for privately owned or privately rented homes rated EPC D to G where the household meets one of three tests: income, means-tested benefits or living in an area of high deprivation.
For a Stevenage household, the catch is national: DESNZ’s guidance for the grant funds a battery only alongside solar PV, so a battery on its own is outside the scheme. GOV.UK says a council arranges a survey only if it has funding available, and usually makes contact within 10 working days of an application.
If the council is your landlord
Tenure decides more battery conversations in Stevenage than any scheme does. Across the borough, 20.4% of households rent from the council itself, and in the town’s built-up area 25.3% rent from a social landlord (Census 2021). For those homes the battery is the landlord’s decision, and the Warm Homes: Local Grant, which is for privately owned homes, does not apply. Ask the council’s housing team what is planned for your home before arranging anything yourself.
Private landlords and their tenants
Another 15.1% of households in the built-up area rent privately or live rent-free. Stevenage’s version of the grant has a rule written for their landlords: one eligible home per landlord can be fully funded, with a 50% contribution required for any further homes. A tenant can raise it, but the application and the decision sit with the landlord, and the battery-with-solar rule still applies.
Everyone else: VAT, loans and a quote
About 59.6% of Stevenage’s households own outright or with a mortgage, loan or shared ownership (our sum of ONS’s figures), and most will not meet the grant’s income tests. For them the national rules matter more. Residential battery installations are zero-rated for VAT until 31 March 2027, with or without panels, and the rate reverts to 5% from 1 April 2027; our guide to VAT on solar panels and batteries explains how it appears on a quote.
The Warm Homes Loan Scheme rules, dated September 2026, cap a battery loan at £15,000 and a solar PV loan at £15,000, with the government paying lenders up to 20% of the loan to bring the interest rate down. That makes it lower-interest, not zero-interest, and we have not yet seen a named lender offering it, in Stevenage or anywhere else. If panels are not possible on your roof at all, our guide to battery storage without solar panels covers a battery charged from an off-peak tariff instead.
Checking the status yourself
Scheme pages change, so treat every status here as a dated check rather than a promise: Switch Together and the council’s Warm Homes page were both read on 15 October 2026. Our solar panels in Stevenage page covers the roof side, including the seven conservation areas, and our solar panels in Hertfordshire hub covers the grants in neighbouring districts. If no scheme fits your household, a survey and an itemised quote are the honest next step, and we will tell you if a battery would not pay its way.
Sources: Stevenage Borough Council, Climate Change, Solar Together Hertfordshire (posted 8 April 2025), Warm Homes: Local Grant (privately owned and rented homes), and Stevenage Museum, Stevenage New Town; Switch Together, Stevenage page (read 15 October 2026); GOV.UK, Warm Homes: Local Grant successful local authorities (updated 2 July 2026) and Apply for the Warm Homes: Local Grant; DESNZ, Warm Homes: Local Grant guidance (updated 2 July 2026); DESNZ, Warm Homes Loan Scheme scheme rules (September 2026); ONS, Towns and cities, characteristics of built-up areas, Census 2021 (Table 6c), and Census 2021 TS054 Tenure, Stevenage, via Nomis; HMRC, VAT Notice 708/6.