Home Battery Storage Installation Statistics

Around 82,000 certified battery installations had been recorded in the UK as of April 2026, according to the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology¹. That is the headline answer to the question most people arrive with, and it comes with two qualifications worth knowing at the outset. First, it counts installations certified under the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS), so batteries fitted by uncertified installers, or before the scheme began recording them, sit outside the figure. Second, the pace has changed so quickly that any total dates fast: 36,000 installations were certified in the first six months of 2026 alone, almost double the same period a year earlier².

The growth is the real story. The previous annual record was 40,000 installations, and that record was almost surpassed in just six months of 2026². Batteries are overwhelmingly going onto homes that already have solar: 92% of battery installations in the first half of 2026 went onto properties with solar panels², and around 20% of new solar installations now include battery storage, although some analysts believe that figure to be higher¹.

The topline figure and how the running total grew

The 82,000 figure is a cumulative count of certified installations, and it has been built in a remarkably short time. MCS introduced its battery storage installation standard at the end of 2021⁴, so the entire certified record fits into roughly four and a half years. Before that point there was no standard against which a domestic battery installation could be certified, and therefore no systematic national count.

The early months were modest. In November 2023, the official statistics record 841 installations, of which 831 appear in the sample, with a total sample capacity of 6,900 kWh⁶. Compare that with 36,000 installations in a single half-year in 2026, and the scale of the change is clear. The government's own announcement in 2026 noted that battery installations had risen significantly, with installations almost double the same period last year at 36,000³, and MCS reported the same figure alongside the near-surpassing of the 40,000 annual record².

Two forces explain the acceleration. One is the falling cost and rising familiarity of the technology, reflected in the fact that batteries are now a routine add-on to a solar installation rather than a specialist project: 92% of 2026's battery installations went onto properties with solar panels². The other is that the certified route has become the normal route, because grant schemes increasingly require it, as discussed below. A householder reading the 82,000 figure should therefore understand it as a floor for total domestic storage: it is the count of installations done through the certified scheme, and the true number of batteries in UK homes, including uncertified and off-grid fits, will be somewhat higher, though no official count of that gap exists.

The source explained: the MCS database and its dashboard

The government publishes official statistics on MCS certified domestic battery installations, first published on 29 May 2025⁷. The data are sourced from the Microgeneration Certification Scheme database⁶, or more precisely the MCS Installation Database⁷, and cover retrofitting electric batteries into domestic properties across the United Kingdom⁶. The statistics include capacity and cost information as well as counts⁷.

Several features of the dataset shape what the numbers can tell you:

• Scope: the data includes domestic and existing installations⁶, so new-build batteries fitted outside the MCS process are not captured.
• Cost definition: the cost value associated with each installation includes the cost of the battery, the cost of installing and connecting it to the electricity supply, and VAT where applicable⁶.
• Capacity bands: installations are grouped into batteries approximately smaller than 6 kWh, approximately larger than 11 kWh, and a grouping in between, with the bands chosen to cover distinct groupings in the data⁶.
• Revisions: the figures may be revised following the receipt of more complete data from the MCS⁶.

The same database underpins other official series. The quarterly heat pump deployment statistics for the UK are also drawn from the MCS Installation Database⁸, which means battery, heat pump and solar counts are produced on a comparable basis. Our pages on MCS installation statistics and the MCS Data Dashboard set out the wider dataset, and how to read UK energy statistics explains what revisions and "in development" status mean for a figure you might quote.

Why MCS certification matters when fitting a battery

MCS is a certification scheme for microgeneration installation companies and products⁹. Its roles include setting and maintaining technical standards for installations and products, certifying installers and products against those standards, issuing MCS certificates for completed eligible installations, and assisting certification bodies to review and address cases and consumer issues relating to installers or products¹⁰. For batteries specifically, the relevant installation standard is MCS 3012, and the scheme also requires UKCA or CE marking, which is required in the MCS Battery Installation Standard¹¹.

Certification is not a legal requirement for every domestic battery installation, but it is a condition of specific schemes. Under the Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund rules, for domestic batteries to be eligible the product must be installed by an MCS certified installer, to the relevant MCS installation standard (MCS 3012)¹¹. The same rules note that domestic batteries on the UK market with UKCA/CE marking, which is required in the MCS Battery Installation Standard, are within scope¹¹. In practice, a householder claiming a grant, selling a home, or simply wanting an auditable installation record will find the MCS certificate is what counts.

What certification does not do is equally important, and is covered in full in the consumer protection section below. In short, MCS certifies that the installation was designed and fitted to a standard by a certified company; it does not guarantee the system's day-to-day performance.

How batteries fit into the wider certification figures

Battery installations are part of a much larger certified picture. There were 210,000 MCS certified installations of all technologies in the UK between January and June 2026, equivalent to one installation every 74 seconds². Of those, almost 150,000 were solar installations², and 36,000 were batteries². Solar remains the anchor technology: more than half of solar installations in April 2026 were on homes¹², and nearly 28,000 solar installations were completed across homes, businesses and larger-scale projects in July 2026 alone¹³.

The cumulative solar record dwarfs the battery one. As of April 2026 there were 1,366,599 owner-occupier domestic solar installations recorded¹, against around 82,000 certified batteries¹. That gap is the clearest single indicator of the market's direction of travel: batteries are where solar was some years ago, growing from a small base at a rate that doubles roughly annually. For comparison, in June 2023 there were 27,791 certified installations of renewable technologies across UK homes and businesses in a single month, and MCS projected at that time that nearly a quarter of a million households could install renewable energy by the end of 2023⁴.

The full deployment picture, including heat pumps and the closed Feed-in Tariff and Renewable Heat Incentive schemes, is on our UK home energy statistics pillar page.

Who may install batteries and how their certification is verified

MCS had a base of almost 6,000 certified installers as of December 2025⁵. Not all of those are certified for batteries: each company is certified for specific technologies, and the public register on the MCS website shows which. A householder checking an installer should confirm both that the company holds current certification and that battery storage is among the technologies it is certified for.

Certification is the industry's answer to a problem that consumer bodies have quantified. The Chartered Trading Standards Institute estimates that as many as 5 million UK households are being deterred from installing energy-efficiency measures because of unfamiliarity or a lack of a reliable installer¹⁴. Registers exist precisely so that a householder does not have to take an installer's word for it.

Other home energy measures work on the same principle, with different registers:

• TrustMark is the government-endorsed competent person register; official guidance on home energy schemes directs households to search a competent person register such as TrustMark to find an installer who will assess their circumstances and property¹⁵.
• Cavity wall insulation has its own list: a list of CIGA registered installers is publicly available at ciga.co.uk/registered-installers/¹⁶.
• Green Homes Wales requires that installers be registered with TrustMark and the relevant body for the relevant measure, comply with relevant PAS certification, and not be the borrower or a member of the borrower's household or immediate family¹⁷.
• The Warm Home Discount (England and Wales) Regulations 2026 require boiler and central heating installations to be carried out by a person registered with TrustMark, with a certificate of lodgement issued by the operator of TrustMark¹⁸.
• The Great British Insulation Scheme requires measures to be installed by, or under the responsibility of, a person certified to PAS 2030:19¹⁹.

The pattern is consistent across schemes: public money and consumer protection follow certified installers. A parliamentary committee heard in 2015 that of 450 certified installers under one scheme, only 208 were approved by the BBA as required to comply with the relevant standard²⁰, a reminder that the register is only as good as the check a householder makes of it.

What the regional data reveals and where it falls short

The certified installer base is spread across the UK, with over 2.2 million installation assets of all kinds registered across the country as of December 2025⁵. The battery statistics themselves are published for the United Kingdom as a whole⁶, and the official series does not yet break certified battery installations down by nation or local authority in the published tables, so a householder asking "how many batteries are in my area" is, for now, asking a question the official data does not answer directly.

Other datasets give a sense of the regional pattern, with the caveat that they measure different things. In Scotland, 35,261 domestic solar installations were registered under the Feed-in Tariff scheme by the time of a 2015 consultation²¹, showing an early Scottish uptake of the technology batteries most often accompany. Under ECO3, 85.4% of the 1,035,868 measures were installed in England²², a reminder that certified energy measures of all kinds skew heavily toward England simply because of the size of the housing stock. Local programmes exist too: Stirling Council's battery storage programme had installed batteries in over 100 properties, with a further 200 installations planned for 2018/19²³.

For local detail on certified installations of all technologies, our page on MCS data by local authority shows what the dashboard can and cannot tell you about your area, and renewable installations in Northern Ireland covers the part of the UK where MCS uptake has historically been lowest.

Standards and figures that remain a work in progress

Both the installation standard and the official statistics are young. The battery storage installation standard was introduced at the end of 2021⁴, and the government's battery statistics series was first published on 29 May 2025⁷. The figures are published as "official statistics in development" because they are a new statistics series and are still being developed⁷, and the underlying data may be revised as more complete information arrives from the MCS⁶.

The market itself is still being measured into shape. Around 20% of new solar installations have battery storage, although some analysts believe this figure to be higher¹, a gap between the certified record and market reality that the statistics are designed to narrow. The history of domestic storage in the UK predates the certified record entirely: in 2014, government strategy recorded a plan by Moixa Technology to install and demonstrate its small battery-based storage unit in about 300 homes across the UK²⁴, and Stirling Council's programme of the late 2010s was similarly outside any national count²³. None of those early installations appear in the 82,000.

Certified installations and household energy self reliance

A battery is one of the few measures that genuinely shifts a household's relationship with the grid, and the certified record shows most households are buying it as part of a solar package rather than on its own. With 92% of 2026's battery installations going onto properties with solar panels², the typical certified installation is a home that generates some of its own electricity and stores the surplus for use after dark. The dependence that remains is real: the home still draws from the grid when storage runs low, still depends on an electricity supplier for top-ups and export payments, and still depends on the installer and manufacturer for warranty support. MCS certification addresses the installation, not the decades that follow.

The limits of what certification delivers should be stated plainly. MCS requires installers to provide a design-stage prediction of system efficiency, not verify actual performance²⁵. It does not require remediation of systems that are underperforming relative to their design²⁵. It specifies handover documentation but not the quality of verbal explanation, household understanding, structured follow-up or ongoing support²⁵. A certified battery installation is therefore a floor, not a ceiling: it says the system was designed and fitted to a standard by a company held to account, and nothing more.

Against that, the alternative for the 5 million households deterred by unfamiliarity or the lack of a reliable installer¹⁴ is no installation at all. Certification is what makes a household's move into storage auditable: a certificate, a registered installer, a dataset that feeds the national statistics this page describes, and a route to redress if something goes wrong.

Consumer protection and how complaints are handled

MCS is the contact point for issues with the installation process, the installer, or the MCS certificate or product²⁶. The scheme can be reached through mcscertified.com or by calling 0333 103 8130²⁷. MCS may also contact property owners directly for a short, routine verification on behalf of Ofgem, either via email or phone on 0333 103 8198²⁷, and property owners contacted for such checks should aim to respond within seven days⁹.

What a complaint can achieve has boundaries. Because MCS does not verify actual performance and does not require remediation of systems underperforming relative to their design²⁵, a household whose battery stores less than expected will not get a mandatory fix through the scheme. What MCS does do is assist certification bodies to review and address cases and consumer issues relating to installers or products¹⁰, which is the mechanism through which a poor installer can be held to account. The scheme's stated aim is to ensure consistent standards and provide confidence to consumers²⁶.

For context on how consumer protection works elsewhere in the home energy market, Ofgem's market compliance review of prepayment meter installations found that energy suppliers that did not follow the rules when installing prepayment meters to collect debt without household permission faced a total of £18.6 million in compensation and debt write-off, including £5.6 million in compensation to 40,000 customers²⁸. That is a different sector and a different regulator, but it illustrates the pattern: redress in home energy comes through the scheme or regulator that governs the work, and for a certified battery installation that route runs through MCS in the first instance.