Electricity costs the least in the middle of the night (or increasingly, the middle of the day), when demand is lower, but most households never see those prices because they pay one flat rate, whatever time of day they use it. The battery automatically fills up on cheap overnight electricity, and the household runs on that stored power, instead of buying from the grid at far higher prices.
It comes as energy bills rise again on 1 October, the second increase in a row, with electricity prices under the price cap now 61 percent higher than at the start of 2020. Until now, cutting energy bills with home energy tech has meant two things most households don’t have: thousands of pounds in the bank and a roof suitable for solar panels. Sunsave Home Battery Plus removes both barriers – nothing to pay upfront, with customers owning the system from day one, and a simple installation not requiring solar panels.
Sunsave Sona also connects the battery to Sunsave’s virtual power plant, where thousands of home batteries act together like one large power station to help balance the grid. When the grid comes under strain, from a spike in demand or a lull in wind and sun, Sunsave’s network sends stored power back at the moments it is needed most. That job normally falls to expensive, high-emission gas plants but with Sunsave’s virtual power plant, households get paid for it instead.
The batteries come with free smart software Sunsave Sona. The software learns how a household uses energy, checks real-time prices, then charges and discharges the battery to get the best savings every day, so consumers no longer need to monitor and set their charging schedules manually.
Launched in early access earlier this year, the package can save customers up to £36 a month, after any payments for the battery are taken into account, with customers being already on track to save an extra £240 a year, according to the company.
Grid balancing payments vary with demand, but some customers have earned as much as £30 a month on top of their bill savings. Sunsave is also guaranteeing savings of at least £15 a month for the first 12 months on battery-only systems, and the first 18 months on solar and battery systems.
Rising energy bills are squeezing household budgets, and the pressure is not easing. According to Ofgem, wholesale energy makes up less than 40 percent of a typical bill. The rest goes on running and upgrading the grid, government policy costs, and supplier costs, which means bills can keep climbing even if the cost of energy itself falls.
The grid is changing, with more of Britain’s power now coming from wind and sun, so supply rises and falls with the weather. The system needs ways to store electricity when there is plenty and release it when it’s scarce. Home batteries do exactly that, helping the grid run more efficiently and lowering costs for everyone. But until now the large upfront costs of home energy tech have kept that option out of reach of the families who need it most.
“The households under the most pressure from rising bills have had the least access to the technology that lowers them” said Alick Dru, co-founder and CEO of Sunsave. “Going solar meant a suitable roof and thousands of pounds upfront, so the savings went to the people who needed them least. Sunsave Home Battery Plus needs neither. If you’ve got a wall for a battery, you can start saving immediately.”
Sunsave brings the kit, installation, finance, long-term protection and smart battery management together in one package with one bill. Founded in London in 2022, the company has helped thousands of households cut their bills with solar. But many UK homes are unsuitable for solar, whether down to roof direction, shading, space or other reasons. Standalone batteries open comparable savings to solar for the majority of UK homes for the first time.
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