Update Review – 22/08/2025

Thank you to Shane from Sales for going through everything that needed to be done – very helpful!

The P5 has been saving me a lot of money – bills are almost nothing now with solar added on. It’s a nice, compact, and stylish grey unit.

I did have a few issues at first, but they were software-related and quickly sorted out over email or phone with help from Mo – great support.

The installation was carried out by one of their contractors. It was clean and tidy overall, though a little more planning would have made it easier for the lads and avoided them having to rush.

Overall, I’m really happy with the system and the savings it’s bringing.

Great bit of kit.
The ordering and installation process was very straightforward and the battery "does what it says on the tin".
I have one suggestion relating to SMARTSTORE.
I have an EV which uses an Ohme charger and Intelligent octopus go. It often charges outwith the 2330 to 0530 window (presumably reflecting grid conditions). Is there any way they could all communicate so that the EV doesn't use Powervault to charge at these times?

Our Battery was fitted quickly and neatly by Orca and everything went well. We are charging nightly on cheap rate to run the heat pump during the day. So we can now say the heat pump is running at the same cost as if it were on gas per kilowatt of energy, plus heat pump efficiency which really blows the gas boiler out of the water. Let's really say good bye to fossil fuels because we love humanity rather than greed.

Great quality Powervault 5 and helpful staff

Very good service

Great product sold by a fantastic and knowledgeable team. I would highly recommend.
From discussion about batteries, advice about which energy company, to installation I can not praise enough.
I opted for the 10KWH powervault P5 to be connected to the existing solar panels, and although we haven't used it through a summer yet, I can see it's potential.
Absolute no brainer if you want cheaper bills and lower carbon footprint.
Fantastic product.

OK so 6 months in and....product not so great.
Battery doesn't appear to hold its charge, and even when it is charged we have started taking power off the grid which defeats the whole idea of having a battery. Battery charge isn't an issue right now as its sunny and most of power is solar but come winter it will be. Buying cheap power at cheap rate times, only to lose it is a joke, especially when your taking energy again later at peak rate.
What's makes the issue worse is the customer support. Being a retired electronics engineer I always like to get some kind of feedback as to what the issue was, and how it was resolved. Getting any kind of feedback is like pulling teeth. Any contact has always ended in 'it was a software issue and it's now resolved' when clearly it's not.
Been a week since last contact and no idea what's going on now. I suspect the unit is faulty as the poor battery level reporting is getting worse.
We will see what happens but it's getting to the point that I will be having the unit removed and will be sending it back.
Great concept if it worked, but the lack of communication is now worrying.

Good installation and very helpful after service

I've just bought a 20kWh Powervault 5 because I have moved off gas for my heating and hot water, so my electricity bills have gone up sharply. I have moved to the Good Energy EV tariff, which gives me cheap electricity between midnight and 5am. Using the Powervault Smartstor AI optimisation software, I can save myself £4.50 per day BEFORE the benefit that I also get from charging up for free when the sun is shinning and I have a surplus from my solar PV panels.

The installation went really smoothly and the Powervault support team dealt very quickly with the one query that I have had since installation (about setting up Smartstor). I love the Powervault portal software, which tells me exactly what is going on with electricity usage in my house.

The system works well, in addition to capturing energy from the solar panels I top up the batteries from cheap over-night energy, this has reduced my electricity bill by 50%.

Come on Powervault that’s misleading marketing “ Myth 2: If something goes wrong with my battery, it will take months to fix”
It literally took weeks and weeks to fix my consistent crashes.
The classic was when within 5 minutes of installation it fell over and took over a week to fix when the installer couldn’t have been more than a couple of miles away.

I had your developer talking to me .
The final straw was when the badly designed airflow would overheat the system with a badly designed non user friendly filter
You guys never even answered my question on its efficiency I ran tests and it was 60%
Why was I finally refunded as were others I know

You know when EDF knocked me for over £600 and I was left with a wall full of holes I wasn’t forgiving ever

This product works well but requires some monitoring to maximise savings. During August and September the cost of our electricity was more than halved from 19p/kWh on the Octopus Go tariff to 9p on their Dynamic tariff (Agile). This saved us £105 over 2 months. It is not clear if this saving will continue for the rest of the year because during these two months there were several “power price plunges” on days when it was both sunny and windy, and the cost of electricity became low and sometimes negative on these days – often for several hours. We used the Powervault to “fill our boots” with stored electricity on nearly all of these occasions. For the winter months there will be less solar energy but may be more wind, and so it is not clear if we will continue to enjoy similar plunges in electricity prices.

The 8kWh (AC) P5 battery is sufficient to cover our entire electrical consumption until the next recharge on most days. If we are both WFH and use the oven (or other high energy devices) then the battery will be depleted by around 8pm. This is OK as the cost of electricity is usually reasonably low on the Agile tariff from 8pm onwards.

The Powervault Portal allows users to see the state of charge of their battery, and you can access this from your PC or mobile phone. The software is great and it is easy to control the system – e.g. to arrange a top up charge during the day if needed.

Our P5 is only powered by the grid as we can’t have solar panels in our basement flat. For anyone using this technology in conjunction with solar panels the savings are likely to be higher but you will need to use the SmartStor technology. In theory this should work well, but please see other reviews for feedback on this and my comments at the end of the next para on EV charging. The SmartStor technology monitors your energy use and makes decision on when to charge, and how much charge to take. It uses a machine learning approach and takes about 2 weeks to start making decisions (ideally this should happen more quickly, or else it should start with an initial policy on charging. I have made this suggestion to Powervault).

For users like us owning an EV but with no solar panels you may prefer not to use the SmartStor technology. Instead you can “force charge” from (say) 2am – 5am each day, and charge your car (e.g. a hybrid with a 7kWh battery, using a “granny charger” and 24 hr timer) during these hours. This strategy works well as the half hourly electricity prices are usually cheapest at this time.. For anyone with an EV with a much larger battery you will need to control when your EV charges using its control software, or from your charger. If (like us) you get it wrong on occasion then the car will deplete the Powervault and you will start the day with no remaining charge ! Using the “force charge” option, however, means that you can’t use the SmartStor software. Bottom line: owners of electric-only EVs should discuss this with the Powervault sales person to see how to best to provide power at optimum cost for both the car and house. Ideally what is needed is a version of SmartStor which allows the user to request a “Force Charge” at certain times, and allows the system to make charging decision at other times (Powervault: please note!)

Owners of solar panels who are looking to replace their inverters and upgrade their systems to battery storage should definitely consider buying this product. The Powervault replaces the inverter and provides a battery system, plus all the controls that you need. The payback is likely to be very good as you can use your solar panels (in conjunction with a dynamic tariff such as Octopus Agile) to maximum advantage.

For any of you with excess solar power capacity you can use the Powervault to export electricity to the grid at optimum times. This is likely be very worthwhile but it would be worth getting a financial projection from PowerVault first.

Most Powervault systems can be provided with an Emergency Power Socket. This is worth having if you have any concerns about power failures. This provides two 13 A sockets which can be used to provide electricity in case of a power cut. At the risk of STBO you also need a long extension cable to provide power to places in your house where emergency power is needed !

Overall the system is working better than we hoped with a 50%+ reduction in electricity cost (caveat: based on the first 2 months of operation) and is easy to use. For anyone with an electric-only EV, using solar panels, I suggest that you ask PowerVault for projections and further guidance.

It's a great product, saving us thousands of pounds on our energy bills - and the team who installed it were just super nice and friendly and courteous. I highly recommend the Powervault product and team.

The new compact unit has proved very good and effective.
The installation was ok but more difficult for the electricians than expected.
Communication with Powervault was difficult at times because the quoting and ordering process was not seamless

Everything about this process was easy and pleasant, including the installation.

I have nothing but praise for the efficiency and effectiveness of your system

Excellent installation service. Friendly, efficient and professional. Highly recommended.

What a fabulous company. We have had our battery connected to our solar panels for almost a year now. It’s a wonderful piece of kit, very reliable, and with an extremely comprehensive portal that shows you everything that’s going on with a live update that you can have on your phone. We experienced our first technical issue this morning, with a dreaded red light showing on the battery, but it was fixed remotely within minutes of calling the powervault team. No fuss, no problems, just sorted. My husband and I are so happy we chose to spend our hard earned cash with these guys. Best decision we’ve made in a while.

Battery performing well but communication not brilliant. They called off survey on the day due to emergency elsewhere. Survey then done by zoom. I was billed for unnecessary extra cost items that I had to get removed. Tried to deliver the wrong size battery unit without warning. Had to be returned for the correct model. Fitting went well but no user manual only brief verbal instructions and access to the computer interface given by the fitter. So I had to experiment with what various options did to the operation and make my own mistakes. I still don't have a satisfactory access to my battery control from my android mobile. It kept getting me to log back in with password. Since an update a few days ago I've lost it completely. I still have full access from laptop.