How to Add Battery Storage Jobs to Your Electrical Business

Start with a service you can explain and support, rather than advertising every battery brand. Decide whether you are offering a survey, a standalone installation, a retrofit alongside existing solar, an electrical subcontract package or aftercare for systems you know. Those are different jobs with different information needs.

Write a short service statement: equipment families covered; geographical area; who designs and commissions; what documents are supplied; and who handles a fault after installation. HSE describes electrical competence as task-specific. Check the training, experience, manufacturer requirements and insurance relevant to the work you will actually accept.

Where you offer an MCS-certified installation, confirm the business's current certification scope with its certification body. RECC advises customers to check certification for the relevant technology. A general electrical qualification, a supplier account or a business listing does not establish that scope.

A homeowner without solar may want to store purchased electricity. An existing solar owner may want to use more of their generation, replace an inverter or discuss backup. Ask which outcome they want before selecting equipment. Do not make backup power or a savings figure part of the offer until the proposed system and operating assumptions support it.

For a retrofit, request the inverter model, available installation records, existing monitoring information and the customer's export-payment arrangement. Ofgem publishes guidance on adding storage alongside FIT and SEG installations. Retain the actual scheme and supplier correspondence instead of promising that every alteration leaves payments unchanged.

Use the battery retrofit survey checklist to turn that first conversation into a list of confirmed facts and questions for the visit.

Your service page should say what happens next: the customer sends basic details, you review the information, and you agree the assessment needed before the installation quote. Explain any survey charge before booking. Show your real service area and the equipment you support; use photographs of your own work with permission, or label an illustration clearly.

• Ask for: postcode, requested outcome, existing solar and battery equipment, proposed location and convenient access times.
• Explain: what the first visit covers, what information you need beforehand and when a firm scope can be offered.
• Show: verified business details, applicable certification and a clear way to contact the business.
• Avoid: universal payback promises, borrowed reviews and prices that assume an unseen property is straightforward.

A customer should be able to tell whether the service suits their home before calling. A precise small offer is more useful than a long list of technologies with no stated boundary.

Start with genuine sources of enquiries: your existing service page, relevant supplier installer programmes and relationships with local solar firms. Check the terms of a manufacturer programme before calling yourself an approved installer or expecting referrals.

For a partnership, agree who speaks to the customer, carries out the assessment, sets the price and remains responsible for aftercare. Ask a solar firm what is missing from its current workflow: retrofit surveys, electrical capacity assessments or a reliable return visit may be more useful than another generic installation pitch.

Do not treat an old customer's phone number as permission for a marketing campaign. Keep requested service contact and promotional outreach separate. The trade email-permission guide covers that distinction.

Build the price from your supplier quotation, labour, travel, design and commissioning time, agreed paperwork, making good and aftercare commitments. Record the equipment revision and supplier price date. Leave an unresolved location or route as a question to settle, rather than silently assuming the cheapest option.

Name who handles network correspondence. UK Power Networks provides separate guides for solar/storage and multiple technologies at one property; use the customer's actual network operator and proposed arrangement. A customer accepting your quote is not a network decision.

• Survey: scope, deliverable, price and information required.
• Installation: equipment, location, route, work included and exclusions.
• Dependencies: compatibility evidence, permission or network response, owner and effect on the programme.
• Changes: how a different location, product or extra work will be priced and agreed.

For a combined offer, use the solar, battery and EV package example. Price from your own costs; market averages cannot establish the margin on this job.

Fictional workflow example. A homeowner has solar and asks for a battery in the utility room. They also ask whether the freezer will stay on during a power cut. Your first reply confirms the objective and requests existing equipment records. You do not promise backup or specify a battery from that message.

The survey establishes the available options and information still needed. Your proposal separates the agreed storage installation from any optional backup work. It names who resolves compatibility and network questions, what happens if the location changes, and which documents will be handed over.

After the customer accepts the resolved scope, retain the installed equipment details, actual commissioning evidence and issued documents. Use the solar and battery handover record as an index to the originals. Agree a support contact and record unresolved items instead of calling a powered-up system a finished handover.

In Tradehand, add the services and coverage area your business actually offers. Use the job record for the enquiry, survey information, visits and documents, and quotes for the proposed work and your prices. An invoice records the commercial charge; technical completion stays with the responsible person and the actual test evidence.

Keep a short enquiry log: source, requested work, survey booked, quote sent, accepted scope and completed handover. Review where a job stopped and why. That tells you whether to improve the service page, the assessment or the proposal; clicks alone do not show that the service is working.