Introducing Sunplug – Smart Solar from Lightsource & EDF

We’re proud to announce that Lightsource and EDF Energy have joined forces to create a revolutionary renewable energy system, tailored to your home. The Sunplug solution combines solar PV with battery storage and a smart monitoring system, giving customers much more control over their home’s electricity, and the ability to reduce their bills and carbon footprint.

Adding storage to residential solar means that more people than ever will be able to generate clean electricity for their homes – gone are the days of having to be at home all day to get the most out of your solar!

The lack of storage capabilities in traditional systems meant that solar was rarely a good option for anyone who wasn’t at home during the day – your panels were generating loads of cheap, clean power that you couldn’t use, because you were out and about. As soon as the sun went down, you’d have to run your appliances on expensive grid electricity instead. By introducing storage to solar, Sunplug is changing all that. Adding Sunplug to your home means you can store your own clean energy to use during peak tariff times, reducing your need to purchase expensive grid electricity and cutting your bills even further.

Essentially, the Sunplug solution offers homeowners greater control over their energy consumption. Combining a cutting-edge home battery with an innovative online app, customers can store excess solar electricity for later use, while monitoring how much energy is being generated, used, stored or exported to the grid in real time. Homeowners with Sunplug can generate up to 88% of the electricity consumed by their homes using their solar panels. Sunplug allows customers to understand their energy usage patterns, giving them the chance to make positive behavioural changes to reduce their electricity consumption, inevitably money on their bills.

The solution comes in two different formats: Sunplug Complete and Sunplug Battery. With Sunplug Battery, customers who already have an existing solar PV system can boost the efficiency of their panels with storage and monitoring technology. Sunplug Complete offers customers two ways to get a cutting-edge solar PV system for their home, either having the system installed at no upfront cost and being billed only for the solar electricity they use, at an index-linked rate of 9.9p/kWh, or buying the system and receiving the solar electricity for free.

Emma Tildesley, one of the first Sunplug customers, said: “I would absolutely recommend it to my friends and family. Who doesn’t want to save money? It’s so easy to install and not intrusive in any way. With the energy monitoring system that comes with the battery you find you are constantly looking to see what you are generating…. You do become slightly obsessed with the weather!