Getting solar panels will always reduce your energy bills, but it’s an expensive purchase if you’re buying upfront, and adding a battery only pushes the price up further.

It therefore makes sense to ask whether a battery is necessary – but it very much is, at least if you want to maximise your solar savings and earnings.

In this guide, we’ll explain all the reasons why you should get a battery with your solar panels, as well as the kind of costs, savings, and income you can expect with and without a battery.

We install batteries with our solar panels, to ensure our customers get the most out of their switch to solar. To find out how much you could save with a solar & battery system, enter a few details below and we’ll provide an estimate.

Can you get solar panels without a battery?

You can certainly get solar panels without a battery.

This approach was pretty common during the 2010s, when around a million UK homes switched to solar, but batteries weren’t yet a standard part of installations.

It’s still possible, but rare: around 94% of new solar panel installations in the UK include a battery, according to data from Flexi-Orb and EPVS.

Most installers automatically include a battery as part of their solar packages, so you’ll have to ask them for a specifically solar-only installation.

Let’s get into why this shift has happened.

How do solar panels work without a battery?

When daylight hits your rooftop, photons dislodge the electrons in your solar panels, creating an electrical current. Your inverter converts this Direct Current (DC) electricity into Alternating Current (AC) electricity.

This electricity will always go to your home first – and if your panels are producing more than you need, the excess will go straight to the grid.

You can get paid for this by signing up to a solar export tariff – but you’ll have no control over these exports, which will be common in summer, when production levels often exceed how much electricity you use.

With a battery, you’d be able to store this extra electricity and use it later, to reduce your energy bills after the sun sets – but without one, this option isn’t available to you.

Solar panels will reduce your energy bills whether they’re connected to a battery or not, but you’ll miss out on some major financial benefits – as we’ll discuss below.

What are the downsides of solar panels without a battery?

The main downsides of getting solar panels without a battery are that you’ll earn less from exports, save less on your energy bills, and not have any backup power.

Here’s more information on all of those disadvantages, and how important they are.

1. Use less solar energy

A battery allows you to store excess energy and use it later on.

This is great, since in most cases, using solar electricity at home will save you more money than selling it to the grid – and the more you consume, the better.

After all, if it costs 25p per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to buy grid electricity, using solar electricity instead will save you 25p per kWh – whereas the average export rate in 2024-25 was 13p per kWh.

You can only earn more than 25p per kWh if you choose Intelligent Octopus Flux or Octopus Flux – and these tariffs require you to have a battery, as we’ll explain below.

With just solar panels, your system will likely send a significant amount of its output to the grid, causing you to lose out financially.

2. Access fewer export tariffs

There’s a wide array of export tariffs: for example, 50 were in operation during 2024-25.

But some of the best export tariffs on the market, like Intelligent Octopus Flux and Octopus Flux, are only open to homes with a battery.

These are time-of-use export tariffs, meaning the price you’re paid for electricity you sell to the grid changes depending on the time of day you export it.

Both tariffs offer a daily peak rate from 4pm to 7pm, when you can sell electricity for the highest rates on the market, and off-peak rates during the rest of the day.

Your import rate on these tariffs follows a similar pattern, meaning you can buy grid electricity at an off-peak time, then sell it back to the grid during the peak period. This process is known as energy arbitrage.

If you sign up for Octopus Flux, you’ll need to schedule this cycle yourself, while Intelligent Octopus Flux customers can sit back and let smart battery controls do it for them.

Without a battery, you’ll miss out on both of these tariffs, and have to choose from a smaller field of options.

3. Less benefit from time-of-use tariffs

You also won’t be able to benefit as much from time-of-use import tariffs without a battery.

These tariffs are just like Intelligent Octopus Flux, but their peak and off-peak periods determine how much you’ll pay your supplier for grid electricity.

Examples include Good Energy EV Charge and British Gas Charge Power – which both offer five off-peak hours – and Agile Octopus, which has a different rate every 30 minutes. 

Economy 7 tariffs, which provide seven off-peak hours and have been available since the 1970s, are also time-of-use tariffs.

Solar homes on one of these tariffs can profit by filling their battery overnight with cheap electricity, using some of it during the day if their panels aren’t covering their usage, then exporting the remainder at the peak rate.

You can still sign up for a time-of-use tariff with just solar panels, but you can’t profit from energy arbitrage, and any savings you make will entirely depend on how much of your usage you can shift to off-peak times.

4. No backup power

If you frequently suffer from significant power cuts, you may want to invest in a home battery backup system.

Your inverter will automatically disconnect your solar panel system from the grid when it senses an outage – but if you have a battery equipped for home backup, you can get power that way instead.

You’ll need to get a battery that comes with this feature, then ask your solar installer or an electrician to set up one of three backup levels: a single socket, one or more circuits, or your entire home.

When the power goes down, you’ll be able to fulfil some or all of your home’s needs using the electricity you have stored in your battery.

Home battery backup isn’t necessary for the majority of UK homes, since the average household endures 0.4 outages per year, and loses electricity for around 36 minutes in total.

It adds to your costs and requires you to get a larger battery, so you should only take this step if power cuts are a regular, damaging, or dangerous part of your life.

For more information, read our guide to home battery backup for power cuts.

5. No access to virtual power plants

If you have a battery, you can profit from joining a virtual power plant (VPP), which brings together people with renewable energy systems, batteries, and/or smart devices under one umbrella.

This group – which can span a region or country – is able to produce, store, and use energy as a block, which makes it similar to any other power plant, and gives it a stronger bargaining position.

The company in charge of your VPP can sell these actions to the grid in several different ways, all with the aim of ensuring that the UK’s supply and demand levels stay level.

Your VPP operator may incentivise you to take a variety of actions, including buying electricity when it’s cheapest, selling when it’s most expensive, and cutting your imports at peak times.

You can earn money on a VPP alongside your export income, which makes getting a battery even more profitable.

Most VPPs require some level of control over your battery, which allows you to earn money without lifting a finger.

If you’re wondering how much you could save with a solar & battery system, enter a few details below and we’ll provide an estimate.

Solar panel costs without a battery

The upfront cost of switching to solar is naturally lower without a battery.

On their own, solar panels cost around £1,846 per kilowatt-peak (kWp), according to the latest government data.

So if you’re getting a 4.5kWp system, which is usually suitable for a home with two or three bedrooms, you’ll pay about £8,307.

A solar battery costs between £3,000 and £7,000, roughly, depending on the size of the battery.

Adding a 5kWh battery to a 4.5kWp system should add around £3,000 to its cost – a sizeable 36% increase – but the ability to massively increase your savings and earnings make it worth it, as we’ll explain.

Solar panel savings without a battery

To demonstrate how much more money you can save and earn with a solar battery, we’ve designed two systems for a south-facing home in Bristol that uses 3,400kWh per year (which is the UK average).

Both have a 4.5kWp solar panel system, but one has a 5.8kWh battery. This one will obviously cost more initially, but it’ll break even six months earlier, according to our calculations.

This shows how profitable it is to add a battery to your solar panel system – and the difference only grows over time.

After 25 years, the home with a battery is expected to make £38,360 in solar returns, while the system without a battery has the much lower figure of £21,842. That’s a difference of more than £16,500.

Even if you factor in the typical battery lifespan of 10-12 years, and include the cost of a replacement, it still makes financial sense to get a battery.

Solar savings, battery vs no battery

Is it worth getting solar panels without a battery?

It’s absolutely worth getting solar panels without a battery, because they’ll substantially reduce your energy bills – but you can earn much more with a battery.

Buying solar panels on their own can reduce your reliance on the grid when the sun’s up, but a solar & battery system allows you to use your solar electricity in the evening too.

It also means you can sign up for a better export tariff, take full advantage of a time-of-use tariff, and join a virtual power plant.

And if you suffer from frequent, debilitating power outages, it can potentially provide backup power.

To find out how much you could save with a solar & battery system, enter a few details below and we’ll provide an estimate.

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