The short answer: yes, but your set-up decides how
Yes. A battery can be added to solar panels you already have, and if your inverter still works well the usual route is an AC-coupled retrofit. Your inverter, whether you are paid under the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) or the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG), and whether the battery will charge from the grid decide whether your existing payments carry on unchanged. What your network operator must be told depends on combined capacity.
Keep your inverter, or replace it with a hybrid
AC-coupled: the battery gets its own inverter
An AC-coupled battery has its own battery inverter, which sits alongside your existing solar inverter, so it is the usual route when that inverter still works well. The trade-off is efficiency: electricity is converted from DC to AC and back to DC to charge the battery, and each conversion loses a little energy.
Hybrid: one inverter runs panels and battery
A hybrid inverter replaces your existing one and runs panels and battery together, avoiding the extra conversion. If your inverter is near the end of its life, a hybrid is often better value than paying for a second inverter.
Ofgem counts a solar installation's panels and inverters as generating equipment, which you can replace while keeping your FIT accreditation, provided the scheme rules are still met. A change that increases total installed capacity is an extension, and extensions commissioned on or after 15 January 2016 get no FIT support; without a separate meter, readings are pro-rated by capacity.
YEERS checks free of charge whether your inverter is battery-ready or an AC-coupled battery fits better. For price differences, see our guide to solar battery installation costs.
What happens to your Feed-in Tariff
Ofgem says a battery can be added to a FIT installation without affecting accreditation, as long as the metering still meets the scheme rules. Report the change to your FIT licensee with an updated schematic of the battery and metering, the meter readings used for your claims and the date the battery was installed. Adding storage does not change total installed capacity. What matters is where the battery sits and whether it can charge from the grid:
| Where the battery sits | Can it charge from the grid? | Export paid as | FIT generation payments | FIT export payments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| After the generation meter | Yes | Deemed export | Can continue | Unaffected |
| After the generation meter, ordinary meters | Yes | Metered export | Can continue | Metered export stops; deemed export possible if eligible |
| Sharing the solar inverter | No, blocked by inverter settings | Deemed export | Can continue | Can continue |
| Sharing the solar inverter, ordinary meters | Yes | Metered export | Stop | Stop |
This simplifies Ofgem's co-location scenarios 4.1, 4.2, 4.6 and 4.7; real cases are assessed individually, and "ordinary meters" means meters that cannot calculate a net value. Deemed export for solar PV is 50% of the generation meter reading, so with the battery after that meter Ofgem says deemed export payments are unaffected. In some set-ups, battery losses reduce the generation recorded, so FIT payments are likely to fall. Where a battery shares the inverter, Ofgem's examples keep generation payments by blocking grid charging or fitting an approved bi-directional generation meter; most smart meters are not bi-directional in Ofgem's sense.
What happens to your Smart Export Guarantee
You can add a battery to an SEG installation as long as the export meter can still measure your solar export separately. Your SEG supplier must pay for exported stored electricity guaranteed to have come only from your panels. If the battery also charges from the grid and the meter cannot separate the sources, the supplier is not obliged to pay, though it may pay for all or none, ask for extra meters or pro-rate. Check with your supplier first.
Stored solar is solar you no longer export, so the lost export payment counts against the saving. Outgoing Octopus pays a flat 12p/kWh (September 2026), cut from 15p on 1 March 2026; it is a variable tariff, so it can change again. You cannot take FIT export payments and SEG for the same capacity, but you can keep FIT generation payments while opting out of FIT export. See how the Smart Export Guarantee works.
Telling Northern Powergrid
Network operators treat a battery as demand when it imports and generation when it exports, so they need to know about it. In Hull and East Yorkshire that is Northern Powergrid, which covers the North East, Yorkshire and northern Lincolnshire; a Distributor ID of 23 (Yorkshire) or 15 (North Eastern England) in the MPAN on your bill confirms it.
The threshold is 16A per phase for all generation and storage combined, 3.68 kW on a single-phase supply. At or below it, G98 applies and your installer notifies the operator within 28 days of commissioning, with no need to contact it beforehand. Above it, G99 applies: the application goes in before installation and the connection proceeds only once approved. The Energy Networks Association notes that storage used with solar to offset consumption is likely to take the total above 16A per phase.
A G99 fast track for some domestic storage cuts the operator's confirmation time from 45 days to 10 days or less, but not if the battery will run in island mode during a power cut. YEERS's installed battery prices include DNO notification where required; for local options see home battery installation in Hull.
When a retrofit battery does not pay back
- Little of your solar reaches the grid. The solar a battery shifts comes only from surplus, so if you already use most of what your panels generate, there is little to store. Charging on a cheap overnight tariff is a separate calculation.
- The margin per unit is thin. A stored unit of solar is worth the import price it saves, minus the export payment given up, minus conversion losses. The cheaper your import rate, the less it earns.
- It would put FIT payments at risk. In Ofgem's example, a grid-charging battery sharing your solar inverter with ordinary meters ends generation and metered export payments.
- The payback outlasts the warranty. Treat any quote that only pays back after the warranty ends with caution.
Installing a home battery, retrofits included, is zero-rated for VAT until 31 March 2027, reverting to 5% from 1 April 2027 (see VAT on solar batteries). For an answer on your own home, our battery storage installers will check your inverter and design around your smart meter data before recommending anything, and every installation carries our 10-year workmanship warranty.
