Batteries
Why your Billingshurst battery paperwork goes to SSEN, not UK Power Networks
RH14 is on SSEN while Horsham and the coast are on UK Power Networks. What that changes for a home battery in Billingshurst, and what it does not.
An inverter, its isolators and a stacked battery on one of our installations. The inverter is the part the network operator is told about.
Billingshurst is ten miles up the A272 from the workshop, a Horsham District village of 9,127 people at the 2021 Census, and one of the places on our patch where a home battery’s paperwork goes to a different company from the one next door. The RH14 postcode district is on Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks, grid supply point group H. Horsham town and most of the coast are on UK Power Networks. Here is what that changes and what it does not.
What the operator is for
Every inverter we fit — for a battery, for panels, for both — is reported to the distribution network operator for the address. Up to 16 amps per phase, which is 3.68 kW, it is a G98 notification made after the installation. Above that it is a G99 application made before the inverter is energised, and the operator has to say yes. The operator for your house is written into the MPAN on your electricity bill, which is what we read rather than the postcode, because the boundary between the two companies is not tidy and RH12 to the north straddles it.
What SSEN changes
Who receives the form, and how long a G99 takes to come back. The response time on an application is something we plan the job around rather than discover on the day, so for a larger inverter in Billingshurst the application goes in early and you are told the stage it is at.
What it does not change
The kit, the standard it is installed to, or the price. PAS 63100:2024 — the fire-safety specification the wiring regulations have required for home batteries since April 2026 — governs the location, clearances and detection around the stack regardless of who the operator is. The electricians who fit it and sign the certificate are the same. And domestic solar panels and battery storage currently attract zero-rate VAT on either side of the boundary.
Where the stack goes in Billingshurst
The village has a conservation area of its own, with an adopted appraisal and management plan — one of 39 in the district — and the houses inside it are older, often with an outbuilding. Around it the estates are family houses with garages. The battery position follows: an outbuilding wall or a garage wall, both of which take a stack cleanly. Indoors or to the rear, the conservation area is not part of the conversation; an enclosure on a wall visible from the street is, and we would check with Horsham District Council before quoting one.
Sizing, same as everywhere
From your half-hourly consumption or your bills, not from a price list. If a battery will not pay on your usage we say so. Horsham District Council declared a climate and ecological emergency in 2023 and points residents to the West Sussex Affordable Energy service; that is a fair first stop if you are weighing a battery against insulation.
Where to go next
Battery storage in Billingshurst is the page for the job and solar panels in Billingshurst is the roof — the Billingshurst solar page has its own section on the SSEN difference. Up the A272, Horsham’s post is the UKPN side of the district; the home patch at Storrington and Pulborough is also on SSEN. For the questions to put to any installer about the inverter itself, what to ask about a Fox ESS travels well; the county picture is on the battery storage page.
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