Alto Energy are one of the UK’s leading suppliers of ground and air source heat pumps and underfloor heating, with a team that has over 100 years’ experience designing, specifying and delivering heat pump projects – www.altoenergy.co.uk

When a homeowner decides to move their heating system from a fossil fuel boiler to a heat pump system, their consumption of electricity will of course increase and so it is the ideal time to seriously consider the practicalities of fitting a solar PV and smart energy storage system, so that this new  electricity demand can be self-generated on site, reducing both annual costs and CO2 footprint.

This is where Powervault, the UK’s leading manufacturer of smart energy storage systems, and their network of UK-wide installers come in. Powervault’s experience and expertise means that they can recommend the most cost effective solar PV and storage solution for an individual customer’s requirements. This is thanks to Powervault’s modular design, offering storage systems with capacities from 4kWh-24kWh; based on the relative size of the home’s electricity consumption and solar PV array, Powervault can offer the appropriate storage solution that actually meets the homeowner’s particular requirement.

Powervaults work really well in 3 phase systems where one unit is installed on each of the three phases. In addition, for customers who have second generation smartmeters, Powervault’s sophisticated software works with the latest Time of Use and Dynamic tariffs so that when the Powervault is not storing surplus solar PV it can be used to take advantage of “plunge pricing” and store cheap electricity from the grid to be used later in the day to avoid “surge pricing” on imports from the grid during the evening peak.

Currently, fitting a battery energy storage system at the same time as either solar PV and/or a heat pump attracts 0% VAT (rather than 20% VAT if the storage is fitted in isolation), so it really does make sense to invest in these great renewable technologies together.