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Manan Shah’s annual electric bill is £180. Shah, who cofounded the solar installer Solar4Good, has 14 rooftop panels on his family home near Wembley Stadium in northwest London. A similar package comprising a 10kWh battery to store excess energy, plus an inverter to convert solar power into household current, costs about £10,000. The revenue the Shah family receives from exporting energy back to the national grid in summer almost completely offsets the electricity they consume in winter.
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Most importantly for the Shahs, they are insulated from the fossil fuel chaos in the Strait of Hormuz. “If energy prices shoot up 20 per cent this year, that will only add £35 to my monthly bill,” Manan says.
Britain’s domestic energy prices are already the second highest in Europe, while businesses endure the most expensive electricity tariffs in the industrialised world. Is it now cheaper to install solar instead?
According to Gary Waite, a home energy expert, it’s a no-brainer. “The price per watt of panels has dropped by around 40 per cent since 2020,” explains Waite, who runs Gary Does Solar, an advice service and YouTube channel. Over the same period the price of batteries dropped by about half.
Meanwhile the price per unit of electricity, which is measured in kilowatt hours (kWh), rose from about 17p to 27p. The simple economics of solar investment are clear to homeowners, whether the Middle East crisis continues or not.
The biggest game-changer in solar power has been batteries. In decades past residents missed out on free electricity while they were out at work and the sun was shining. However, today a battery can store energy generated during the day for use in the evenings.
Plus, you can sign up to so-called “time of use” tariffs, where people are encouraged to use appliances — like washing machines or dishwashers — when the strain on the national grid is at its lowest, which are another way to make your bill smaller. These now also work for batteries, which store energy that you can use when you need it. “What’s really working for households is filling up their battery with off-peak tariffs,” says Justin Claxton, co-founder of Fox ESS, the leading battery storage manufacturer in the UK and Europe. One such tariff is Octopus Cosy, where you pay half the standard price, about 14p per kWh, to store energy between 4am and 7am and between 10pm and midnight.
“I pay no more than £50 a month for electricity, even though I only have a tiny solar array, by topping up my battery for £1.50 every night,” Claxton says. “Energy companies are now making smart tariffs available for battery customers with no panels at all.” Fox ESS’s latest EVO 10kWh battery has an inverter built in, making it the only product you need to join the party.
Rising energy prices, falling hardware costs and smart tariffs point to a rapid return on investment. When I sourced installation quotes in 2024, the payback horizon was between eight and ten years. “We’ve got install partners that point to a payback period of between three and six years,” Claxton adds, “although there are obviously many variables that could affect that timing.”
Waite has tested dozens of tools on his Gary Does Solar channel that “assess your usage profile to give an idea of what size of kit to buy and understand what the return on investment might be”. The Energy Saving Trust, for example, has an online calculator that inputs panel numbers and installation costs to predict how much a customer can shave off their bill.
“The return on investment for a solar and battery installation will be even quicker if energy prices keep rising,” Waite suggests. “You are effectively saving in terms of how many kilowatt hours you need to buy as well as the cost per unit when buying energy off-peak.” Brace yourselves on that front, because according to Cornwall Insight, Britain’s electric bills might spike by another 11 per cent when the present energy price cap expires in July.
One final factor is slashing the investment return for solar: artificial intelligence. “Historically the hundreds of thousands of batteries in Britain were dumb, importing and exporting energy on the same schedule, regardless of the weather or market prices,” says Clemens Munter, cofounder of Capture Energy (capture.energy). “They left a lot of value on the table.”
The company, which optimises thousands of batteries across the UK, has developed an AI brain that makes payback quicker. Its app connects to homeowners’ batteries, forecasts their daily consumption and solar generation, then adjusts the batteries’ charge and discharge schedule every hour. “In many cases we have seen customers double their savings by optimising their battery using an AI product like Capture.”
I tested their claim. Last week, in mid-March, Capture reduced the average price I pay for each electricity unit to 6.7p. During this sunny week it’s down to 5p. In April my prices should go negative.
With electricity prices this low, might we run out of installers and kit? “I’ve seen a massive surge,” Claxton says. “One month ago I had 20,000 batteries in our UK warehouse. I’m shipping more in. They are selling over and above our expected forecast.”
“I sense there’s a real panic out there,” Shah says — Solar4Good has logged a 40 per cent increase in inquiries since the Iran conflict started. Other households are worried about blackouts lest a hostile foreign power hack or attack the national grid. In short, people who previously discounted solar as “woke” or “green” are realising that it’s simply more cost-effective to make your own energy, rather than exporting fossil fuels from a despotic regime in a warzone 3,000 miles away.
The biggest home energy players have seen which direction the wind is blowing. Next week E.on will launch Next Optimise, an all-in-one deal that combines solar installation, a smart tariff, battery optimisation and financing. “More households will be able to use smart technology that supports how they use and store electricity,” says Ramona Vlasiu, chief operating officer of E.on Next. Since the Middle East crisis, she says, “we’ve seen increased interest as households look for more stability in their energy bills”.
Although the Iran conflict has made solar investment more pressing, there’s a sting in the tail. “Shipment costs are increasing with the oil price,” Claxton explains, “while the rebate for manufacturing in China is reducing.” Moreover, the price of battery‑grade lithium (the key component in solar storage) has increased by almost 100 per cent since summer 2025. “So prices for premium batteries will stabilise, not fall,” the Fox ESS boss predicts.
In April China will also scrap VAT export rebates on photovoltaic products. These effectively acted like a discount for overseas buyers, Waite explains. “The installers I’ve spoken to say it will lead to a 10-15 per cent increase in the price of panels.” The upshot? Homeowners won’t save money by waiting.
Worse still, key tariffs were pulled at the start of the Gulf crisis, Munter says. “Octopus paused sign-ups to their Flux tariffs,” which offer access to discounted rates several times a day. Ovo, British Gas and Scottish Power pulled their fixed tariff deals. “These developments illustrate why batteries are such a good ‘physical hedge’ against price shocks, as they can be charged cheaply during off-peak hours.”
The cheapest household electricity in Britain, Munter continues, “are usually from the EV tariffs like Octopus Go, E.on Next Drive and British Gas Electric Driver,” which offer graveyard shift import rates from 7p to 9p per kWh. “To obtain the most value, residents should top up their battery and run all their appliances during these hours.” Any spare charge left at the end of the day can be sold back to the grid at a premium.
Waite is positive about continued investment return. “As long as you’re exporting when the grid really needs it, typically between 4pm and 7pm, then you could expect to be paid a little more if energy prices rise further.” Some battery optimisers like Axle Energy (axle.energy) are paying customers up to £1 per kWh to export when the grid is most under stress. Other newcomers like PredBat (predbat.com) envisage average bill reductions of up to 45 per cent.
But won’t the price of electricity fall when this man-made crisis abates? “I can’t give you one example of a product in Britain falling in price after they have risen,” Shah says. “A litre of petrol, a pint of milk… they never return to the original price.” Shah is adding extra solar panels to reduce his bill to zero this year. While Britain charts a course for energy independence, some of us are already there.
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