Two of the United Kingdom’s biggest solar installation businesses have joined forces with Centrica-owned energy retailer British Gas in an exclusive partnership to roll out the energy company’s Hive Solar product to the residential market.
Effective Energy Group is the exclusive installer for Hive Solar in England and Wales, while Forster Group acts as the installation partner in Scotland.
Matt Coates, director of business development at Effective Energy Group, told pv magazine that using “trusted brands” such as Hive Solar is important to the installer’s business, and it allows Effective Energy Group to reach customers more effectively and drive interest in household solar.
“The aim is to drive more and more customers to start thinking about [rooftop solar]. With the adoption of EVs and the prevalence of more and more smart tariffs around domestic charging and domestic batteries I can only see that being an ongoing growth market. It’s all about giving the customer the knowledge, giving them the ability to understand the market and be able to make informed decisions,” he said.
Hive Solar is an all-in-one residential proposition from British Gas, which leverages the Hive branding associated with its smart home app. The Hive app allows consumers to control household heating and EV charging remotely. Through Hive Solar, customers will also have access to real-time updates on solar generation, energy consumption and battery storage capacity. Solar and battery storage data is sent to the app’s ecosystem through the Hive Bridge, a communication device which is connected to the inverter by a category 5 ethernet cable. The rest of the installation work is carried out as normal, as Coates explained.
“We install anything from four panels up to 20-30 panels in a standard domestic setting. The average is between eight and 12, we’re typically fitting 430 W panels, but we do have 450 W in our range. That’s the typical installation size. The typical battery size, 5.32 kW is our most common battery size at the moment. We have various inverters in our range, but most installations have the hybrid inverter, most are having the 3.6 kW hybrid with the dual MPPTs. We do upgrade to 5 KW if the system requires,” he said.
Effective Energy carried out its first Hive Solar installation in July 2024 and Forster Group previously confirmed to pv magazine that it was scheduled to do the same.
Susan Wells, low carbon homes director at Hive, said the brand is committed to making solar simple for homeowners “and putting the nation in control of their energy.”
“By integrating solar in the Hive app, customers can better engage with their energy usage by tracking what they are generating and storing, and by selling excess energy back to the grid they are helping their pocket and the planet,” she said.
Hive Solar customers are able to sell back the to the electricity grid through the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG). SEG replaced the feed-in tariff in Great Britain in 2020. Under SEG, homes selling electricity back to the grid are paid a per kWh rate determined by energy companies.
The launch of Hive Solar follows the announcement of a heat pump trial that is scheduled to commence in the fall. Hive and heat pump brand Daikin will team up later in 2024 to integrate Daikin Altherma 3 heat pumps with the Hive energy management system. This will allow customers visibility and control of their heat pump system through the app and allows consumers to set personalized heating schedules, track spending and set budgets, while also optimizing heat pump use for when electricity is cheaper.
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