Is a home battery actually worth it? The honest answer

Batteries are the part of home energy people most often get sold badly — a big round number, a vague promise of independence, and not much maths behind it. So let's be straight about when one is worth it and when it isn't.

A battery moves power in time — that's all

It doesn't make energy. It stores cheap or self-generated power and spends it when power is expensive. Whether that pays depends entirely on two things: your usage shape and your tariff.

A battery tends to be worth it when you have plenty of daytime solar surplus you'd otherwise export cheaply, high evening use after the sun's gone, or a time-of-use tariff that rewards shifting power to off-peak hours. Tick a couple of those and the numbers usually work.

When it's thinner

If your usage is fairly flat, you're on a simple single-rate tariff, and you don't have much solar surplus to store, a battery has less to do — and the payback stretches out. That doesn't make it pointless, but it does mean it should be a considered choice, not a default add-on.

How we find out

We model a battery against your actual half-hourly data and your tariff, and show you what it would really save across a year. If it doesn't earn its keep in your home, we'll tell you — and the answer is genuinely allowed to be "not yet", or "add solar first".