Good news alert! Since the 1st February, the UK government is giving VAT relief on home batteries. The move extends beyond the previous VAT relief, which was limited to batteries installed alongside solar panels. The policy now includes standalone battery installations and retrofitted batteries as well.
For many of our solar PV customers, getting a battery is the obvious next step. Working families who are out during the day are especially aware that although they are generating their own clean green power, they don’t get to use it themselves. A battery system can dramatically increase the percentage of solar electricity that gets consumed within the home.
Electricity suppliers now offer a time-of-day/off-peak tariffs, allowing for the battery to be charged with cheap electricity at night, as well as from the sun during the day. It’s a great way to ensure that energy bills are as low as they possibly can be.
Installing a battery alongside a heat pump also makes good financial sense, as it can reduce future running costs by taking advantage of any off-peak periods to charge the battery and run the heat pump.
Taking a broader viewpoint, by storing solar electricity and using it in the evening, it reduces the peak demand on the UK electricity system. That means we need less fossil-fuelled power stations on the network, and that’s another step forward in the energy transition to renewables.
We hope the latest move by the government to remove VAT from stand-alone battery systems will encourage greater energy self-sufficiency in homes across the UK, and that we will see more households invest in energy storage as a result.
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