Installed home battery
- Fitted by a qualified installer
- Larger capacities for whole-home use
- Can provide backup power, depending on the setup
Best for homes with solar, high evening use or a time of use tariff
How to choose
Independent home battery advice
The honest way to choose a home battery
Independent guides, brand profiles and a calculator that models every hour of your year, so you know what a battery will really do for you before you spend a penny.
Typical UK household, 8 kWh battery
Illustrative example. Your own result depends on your usage and country.
42 independent guides and news articles
66 brand profiles
48 regions in the calculator
8,760 hours modelled per year
Popular questions
All guides
Start with what you want to know
Plain-English answers to the questions people ask before buying, with the numbers shown.
Free tool
The home battery calculator
Enter your annual consumption and solar export to see the recommended battery size, yearly savings and payback time for your country. Every figure is editable.
- 8,760 hour simulation, not a yearly average
- Local tariffs, VAT rules and incentives included
- Free PDF report of your result
Choose your type
Installed, plug-in or portable?
Three very different products all get called a home battery. Here is who each one suits.
Plug-in battery
- Small unit you connect to a socket
- Limited output: covers base load, not a whole-house peak
- Check the current UK rules before you buy
Best for renters and small homes with a steady base load
Plug-in vs installedPortable power station
- Portable, with built-in sockets
- Built for travel, camping and occasional outages
- Not designed to cut your bills every day
Best for occasional backup and outdoor use
Power station vs plug-in
How we work
We would rather be right than optimistic
Most battery calculators use smooth yearly averages, which quietly overstate savings. Here is what we do differently.
Independent
We do not sell batteries, so nothing bends the numbers you see.
Hourly model
Every calculation runs the full 8,760 hours of the year, not an average.
Local data
Tariffs, VAT and incentives are matched to your own country.
Conservative
Savings are capped at what you actually use at night.
Watch
See how HomeBattery.com works
A short walkthrough of the calculator and how we keep the numbers honest. More videos are on the way as we cover capacities, payback and country-specific incentives.
FAQ
The questions you actually have
Is a home battery worth it without solar panels?
Only with a dynamic or time of use tariff. Without price differences there is nothing to arbitrage.
How many kWh do I need?
Size to your evening and night consumption, not your total daily use. Our calculator does this per hour.
Can a plug-in battery power my whole house?
No. An 800 W plug-in unit cannot cover a 3 kW evening peak. Output power decides what it can carry.
How long does a home battery last?
Most are warrantied for around ten years or a set number of charge cycles, whichever comes first.
Ready to see your own numbers?
Free, independent and takes about two minutes.