Places · Street note
Home battery installation in Bath
Updated
Bath's Georgian streets, listed buildings and hills sit next to ordinary suburban homes. The World Heritage context makes external equipment and visible cabling a planning issue in much of the centre.
The houses, not the postcode average
Lead, stone and listed roofs are often a no for panels. Later suburbs can be a normal solar roof.
An internal battery can still be acceptable where an external cabinet on a stone elevation is not. The survey should separate those options.
Hills and coach-busy streets affect delivery.
What gets fitted here
Suburban houses take hybrid systems. Centre properties need a heritage check before anyone talks brand.
South West yield helps the annual figure. It does not remove heritage constraints.
National Grid Electricity Distribution, yield and a 4 kWp example
A 4 kWp array at 1020 kWh per installed kilowatt is about 4,080 kWh a year before shade. That is the local ceiling on solar charging, not a promise the battery will cycle fully in January.
In Bath, on National Grid Electricity Distribution, 3.6 kW is in the band where G98 connect-and-notify is often enough. Export can still be capped. Agree that before the inverter is ordered. The figure uses 5 kWh and 4 kWp, which is enough to tell two quotes apart if they assumed something else.
Take a 5 kWh pack, cycled about 260 times, at 90% round trip. Charge at 7.0p, and value what comes back at 26.0p. Export given up is priced at 4.0p. About 743 kWh a year of the charge is treated as spare solar from 4 kWp that might otherwise have been exported. Delivered energy is about 1170 kWh. After charging cost and lost export, the figure saves about £241 a year. Set that against £5,650 fitted, which is a September 2026 illustration at the temporary 0% residential rate, not a quote. That is a simple payback of about 23.4 years, which is past a typical 10-year warranty. Nudge the night rate up by 4p and see if you still like it.
What I would not sign in Bath
Where the job is a qualifying install in a home, the 0% rate runs to 31 March 2027 and is due to become 5% after that. This figure prices the work at £5,650 on that basis. It does not apply to a shop, and it does not apply to a battery you buy and fit yourself.
I would not sign off a 5 kWh install from a video call. Someone has to open the consumer unit.
Listed stone will veto a visible cabinet that a suburban garage would never have argued about.
Common questions
Is the price on this page a quote?
No. £5,650 is a September 2026 illustration for a 5 kWh example at the temporary 0% residential rate. Your survey replaces it.
Will it stay on in a power cut?
Only if a gateway or essential-load board was designed and paid for. A standard grid-tied battery turns off with the grid. On this 5 kWh example the inverter is 3.6 kW, and backup is still a separate line.
What paperwork should I keep?
Keep the MCS certificate where the job is certified, the electrical certificate, the DNO record, the schematic, the warranty registration and a photo of the schedule. For an illustrated £5,650 job, that folder is part of what you bought.
What if the cheap rate is not 7p?
Then the figure changes. This page used 7.0p as a charge rate and 26.0p as the rate avoided. A smaller gap means a worse payback. Read the live tariff.
Sources
Want a price for your house?
The figures above are a rough guide. An installer still needs to see your fuse board, where the battery will go, and whether you want power during a blackout.