A battery by the sea: siting a home battery in Shoreham-by-Sea

Shoreham-by-Sea is ten miles down the A283 and a town of two halves for a battery survey. Inland of the railway it is semis — 34.6% of households in the Shoreham wards at the 2021 Census — with side paths, garages and utilities. Towards the harbour and the beach it is older, tighter, inside one of five conservation areas, and a quarter of the town’s households are in flats. The kit is the same in both halves. Where it goes is not.

Inland: the semi, and the wall we like

A semi north of the line usually has the position we want without any argument: a garage or a utility on an outside wall, out of the living space, with the clearances and detection PAS 63100 asks for and a short cable run to the board. The survey there is mostly about size. We read half-hourly consumption from the smart meter where it will give it and the bills where it will not, and the battery is sized to the evening load of your house, not to a price list.

By the harbour: salt first

Within a mile of the front the air is salt-laden. For the roof that means marine-grade fixings, clamps and cable containment specified as standard — and for a battery it means that an outside position is only an option in a corrosion-rated enclosure on the same grade of fixings. We will not hang a standard unit on a seafront wall and hope. Most harbour-side batteries go inside: a rear addition, a utility, a dry cellar.

The Article 4 streets

Adur District Council lists Old Shoreham, Shoreham-by-Sea, Kingston Buci, Southlands and Southwick as conservation areas, and inside them Article 4 directions remove some of the permitted development rights that would otherwise cover alterations to a house. A battery indoors is an electrical installation and the directions do not touch it. An enclosure on a wall visible from the street might be a different matter, which is why ours go to the rear or inside there, and why we check with the council before quoting if an outside position is the only one.

The flats, honestly

A battery in a flat needs three things: the freeholder’s or managing agent’s agreement, a supply and meter that are yours rather than communal, and a position that meets the same fire-safety specification as a house. Some purpose-built blocks can give all three; a converted house rarely can. We would rather say that at the start. Shoreham also has live community energy — the Shoreham Society reported in September 2025 on not-for-profit schemes putting rooftop solar on local buildings through community share offers — which is a fair route for a household whose own lease rules a system out.

The operator and the paperwork

BN43 is UK Power Networks, grid supply point group J. An inverter up to 16 amps per phase (3.68 kW) is notified under G98; anything larger is applied for under G99 before it is switched on. We do both, and the MPAN on your bill is what we check the operator against rather than the postcode.

Where to go next

Battery storage in Shoreham-by-Sea is the page for the whole job, and solar panels in Shoreham-by-Sea is the roof side. Along the coast, Worthing’s post covers the terrace with no garage and Brighton’s covers the converted-house question in more depth. The county picture is on the battery storage page, and is a battery worth it is the sums.