Free batteries, proven demand: a route into the social housing market
posted 9th October 2026
The Problem
British Gas wanted two things:
- To grow its share of the energy market.
- To test whether free smart batteries for social housing tenants would work.
The starting hypothesis was simple. Social landlords have to make their homes energy efficient by 2030 (MEES). A free battery, owned and maintained by an installer would help them do that. It would also give tenants a cheaper tariff and ease fuel poverty.
Energy debt is now the most common serious debt people bring to debt charities and it’s growing. In our own survey, 42% of social tenants were in energy debt or had been. My job was to find out how big the opportunity really was and what stood in the way.
My Role & Approach
I was Lead Service Designer and I led the discovery. It had four strands:
- Internal stakeholders: I explored the opportunity with them and identified landlords to approach. We reviewed the work together at show and tells.
- Landlords: I ran exploratory interviews with 7 social landlords (2 councils, 5 housing associations).
- Tenants: I ran 4 surveys with social housing tenants, with 110 to 250 people in each.
- Modelling: I modelled consumption and savings for three setups: battery only, battery plus solar, and battery plus solar plus heat pump.
The Outcome
- The idea moved to a pilot with one council and one housing association. It starts with new builds and empty homes between tenancies (“voids”).
- Tenants who qualify could save about £345 a year.
- 397k households are eligible, out of 2.8 million social homes that are houses or bungalows.
- 77–81% of tenants were interested, depending on the group. The pilot will test whether interest turns into sign-up.
- 4 of 7 landlords found the idea appealing.
- One blocker was removed early. I verified that the battery would not be a charge on the home, so it couldn’t affect a landlord’s borrowing.
Reframing the Problem
Reframe 1: a compliant home isn’t the same as a warm home
We started with compliance. The hypothesis assumed the 2030 deadline would make landlords want this.
Some landlords were on track for MEES. Others were behind or struggling with new rating rules. But in every interview the deadline came second. What landlords kept returning to was underheated homes.
This is how it plays out:
- A home can meet the energy rating on paper.
- The tenant still can’t afford to heat it.
- They underheat to avoid debt. One housing association said many of its residents do this on purpose.
- The home gets damp and mould.
- Damp triggers Awaab’s Law, which makes social landlords fix damp and mould quickly.
- The landlord ends up paying to fix damage after it has happened.
So the gap between an efficient home and affordable energy is the landlord’s problem too, not only the tenant’s. That changed the pitch. It went from “this helps you meet a deadline” to “this helps stop damp before it starts”. It also changed the landlord’s role. They aren’t the energy supplier. They’re the trusted route into the home.
Reframe 2: from “will they want it?” to “who can actually get it?”
Demand was strong. But the battery only works for a tenant if three things are true:
Must have:
- A house or bungalow. Flats are excluded due to fire safety rules for batteries indoors are very hard to meet in a flat.
- An activated smart credit meter. If a prepayment meter runs out of credit overnight, the battery can’t charge at the cheap rate.
- About 4,100 kWh of electricity a year (roughly £100–£150 a month). Below that, the cheaper tariff doesn’t pay for itself. That also rules out homes with solar, because they buy less from the grid.
Put those together and the market narrows: 2.8 million houses and bungalows → 1.6 million with credit meters → 397,000 households that qualify.
I built a mock “week in the life” from research on average bills. Moving from 26.4p to 18p per kWh takes a typical bill from about £105 a month to about £77. That’s around £29 a month, which clears the £20 a month tenants told us would make it worthwhile. But the funnel showed who was left out. Tenants on prepayment meters, especially those paying off debt, are often the people who struggle most. The design challenge became how to reach them.
The Approach in Detail
Testing tenant demand
The idea only worked if tenants used enough electricity and would actually take part. Asking them if they liked it wasn’t enough.
I ran the surveys in stages:
- Survey 1 (n=111): energy habits and behaviour.
- Survey 2 (n=110): how appealing the proposition was.
- Surveys 3 and 4 (n=250 each): a deeper look at habits, appeal, meter type, debt and switching.
I tested willingness to switch to smart meters and savings tenants needed to adopt and stick with this type of tariff.
Understanding landlords
The interviews explored three things: what worried landlords, what would make the idea appealing and what it depended on.
Four of seven found it appealing. They liked:
- No cost to them, no admin and no liability.
- Reaching homes that can’t get solar, such as terraces, north-facing homes and constrained roofs.
- New builds and voids, where there’s no tenant to negotiate access with.
The concerns were practical:
- Refinancing. Would a third-party battery count as a charge on the property and affect borrowing? For 3 of 7 this was a deal-breaker.
- Supplier choice. Landlords can’t tell tenants which supplier or tariff to use.
- Energy rating. On its own, a battery does little for the energy rating, which is the measure landlords are judged on.
- Insurance, fire safety and maintenance. Who fixes a battery fixed to the outside of the home?
I tested how the lease could work and verified that the battery could sit as an unsecured asset. In plain words, it has no legal claim on the house, so it doesn’t affect the landlord’s borrowing. That removed the biggest blocker before the pilot.
Modelling
I modelled three setups: battery only, battery plus solar, and battery plus solar plus heat pump. Solar makes the tenant’s energy cheaper overall, but they buy less from the grid, so the cheaper tariff stops being viable. Battery only came out as the strongest offer. It also helps landlords reach homes that will never get solar.
New insights
Landlords underestimated tenant demand. Landlords expected tenants to be hard to engage. Tenants said they wanted a fix. Closing that gap is what research is for.
Smart meters weren’t the barrier people expected. One landlord had run a smart meter programme across 2,000 homes and got 1% uptake. But 197 of 250 tenants said they would definitely or probably switch to a smart credit meter if the saving was big enough.
Tenants want the outcome, not the action. 29% said switching tariff felt too complicated, even though nearly all had a smartphone. So switching has to be built into the service. It can’t be left to the tenant.
Lower bills is the only message that works. 68% chose lower bills as the main benefit. Only 10% chose helping the environment. £20 a month was the most common answer for a saving worth having.
Shorter contracts. 12 months was the clear preference. Two years could put people off, though 59% said they would definitely or probably accept it.
The people with the most critical need are the most likely to be excluded. 51% of tenants in debt were very interested, compared with 40% of those who weren’t. But debt goes hand in hand with prepayment meters, and prepayment meters rule people out.
What was different
I thought legal deadlines would push landlords to move fast. Those were Awaab's Law and MEES (the minimum energy rating a rented home must meet). I was wrong. Most landlords were already on track.
The real problem started earlier:
- Tenants can't afford to heat their homes.
- The homes get damp.
- Damp triggers Awaab's Law.
- Landlords end up fixing damage after it happens.
So I changed the pitch. Not “this helps you meet a deadline” but “this helps stop the damp before it starts”. That's what landlords responded to, because it fixed the cause, not the symptom.
Closing the gap
The numbers also showed who was left out: tenants on Pre-Payment Meters, where you top up before you use energy. I treated the prepayment and debt group as a design problem, not an edge case. I recommended identifying high-priority families and referring them to the British Gas Energy Trust for debt clearance. That would let more people move onto the 18p tariff. One landlord also said they would consider paying off a tenant’s fuel debt to get the battery installed.