Sigenergy SigenStor installer covering North Yorkshire

ALPS Electrical is a family-run electrical and renewables firm based at Kirklevington, just outside Yarm. We are MCS Certified, NAPIT Registered and a Tesla Certified Installer, we hold 500+ five-star reviews across Checkatrade and Google, and we won Checkatrade Sustainability Champion in 2024. Andy Pemberton surveys and specifies every system himself.

On Sigenergy, honestly: we are an early adopter of the Sigenergy SigenStor in the North East — we install and commission SigenStor systems and have two complete installs documented on our YouTube channel. Watch the slate-roof install and the SigenStor with full home backup. We will not dress that up as a manufacturer accreditation, because it is not one.

North Yorkshire is a drive for us rather than a doorstep job. From Yarm it is roughly 17 miles to Northallerton (about 23 minutes) and about 43 miles to both York and Harrogate (about 57 minutes). We plan work here in blocks, so survey, install and commissioning are not three separate round trips.

26.4% of North Yorkshire's 303,800 dwellings were built before 1919, against 20.1% for England, and the former Harrogate district is 26.5%. York is the exception everyone gets wrong: only 16.7% of its 93,040 dwellings pre-date 1919, below the England average, because the walled core is small against York's large 20th-century suburbs.

33.8% of North Yorkshire's 274,383 households live in a detached house against 22.9% across England, and only 8.0% live in flats against 17.1%. Siting is usually easier here than on a Teesside terrace — a garage, boot room or outbuilding is normally available — and the large detached houses and converted farm buildings that come to us are where the bigger three-phase controller earns its place. The Sigen Energy Controller runs 3.0 to 12.0 kW single-phase and 5.0 to 30.0 kW three-phase.

The battery modules are IP66 and listed as floor-standing or wall-mounted, so an external wall is a legitimate option, not a compromise. At 62-78 kg a module, on an older wall that is a fixing conversation, not an afterthought. Modules run from -20°C to 55°C, so an unheated barn is within spec — but Sigenergy's warranty sets a recommended working temperature of 10°C to 30°C, and inside the thermal envelope usually serves better over ten years.

An estimated 76,567 of North Yorkshire's 303,780 domestic properties are not connected to the gas network — 25.2%, against 15.6% for England and 10.8% for Yorkshire and The Humber. York is only 12.7% off-grid. This is the biggest difference between quoting a battery here and quoting one on Teesside.

Off-grid homes run on oil, LPG or electricity, and where the heating is electric the demand curve is bigger, winter-weighted and far more sensitive to when you buy the units — which is the case a battery is built for. Ownership points the same way: 41.4% of North Yorkshire households own outright against 32.5% across England.

Rural mileage also makes the optional EV DC module worth considering. The SigenStor EVDC 12 charges and discharges at up to 12.5 kW DC in standard mode, upgradeable to 25 kW by licence on specific models. Two caveats: it must be used with the Sigen Energy Controller, and Sigenergy states V2X is limited by the EV's capabilities — so treat it as V2X-ready and vehicle-dependent, not something to rely on today. If a standard AC charger is all you need, that is a simpler job: EV charger installation.

City of York Council states there are 35 conservation areas in York, some carrying Article 4 Directions that remove permitted development rights. North Yorkshire Council lists 53 in the former Harrogate district, from the Victorian town centre down to hamlets such as Middlesmoor. York also has over 1,500 listed buildings, and altering or extending a listed building requires listed building consent.

None of that means no solar. Under Class A of Part 14 of the General Permitted Development Order 2015, solar PV on a dwelling in a conservation area or World Heritage Site is not permitted development if it goes on a wall which fronts a highway; equipment must always be sited to minimise its effect on the building's external appearance and on the amenity of the area; a flat-roof installation on Article 2(3) land needs a prior-approval determination from the local planning authority; and permitted development does not extend to a curtilage building where the main dwelling is listed. Read plainly: a roof-slope array that does not front a highway is generally still permitted development, and we establish the position before designing the array.

Which authority you deal with depends on the postcode. Outcode YO1 returns the administrative district "York", so York homeowners deal with City of York Council, while HG1 and DL7 both return "North Yorkshire".

Northern Powergrid holds two separate distribution licences and it matters which you are in. Northern Powergrid (Northeast) plc serves the Northeast of England, MPANs commencing 15; Northern Powergrid (Yorkshire) plc serves Yorkshire, Humberside and parts of Lincolnshire, MPANs commencing 23. The first two digits of the supply number on your bill tell you which.

The counterintuitive part: we checked all seven towns on this page against Northern Powergrid's own licence-area boundary dataset and every one returned the Northeast area — ours — while a Leeds control point returned Yorkshire. Those are town-centre point samples, not a traced boundary, so check your own MPAN prefix.

G98 or G99 — the difference that sets your timeline

EREC G98 covers fully type-tested micro-generators up to and including 16 A per phase — 3.68 kW single-phase or 11.04 kW three-phase — as the aggregate capacity at a single premises, and the definition explicitly includes electricity storage devices. Under G98 nobody contacts the network in advance: the installer notifies the DNO within 28 days of commissioning, which the guide states plainly is a legal requirement. Above that threshold it is a G99, and the application must go in before any generation equipment is installed. Most SigenStor configurations worth having exceed 3.68 kW single-phase, so unless we export-limit, yours is a G99 — and it needs starting early.

Be careful what you are promised on timing. The published timescale for a DNO quotation on an LV generation connection is 45 working days — an outer limit, not a typical turnaround. Northern Powergrid also publishes an Electricity Storage Fast Track assessing eligible connections within 10 working days, but it requires export limited to 16 A per phase by a G100-compliant device and no island-mode operation. A SigenStor set up for whole-home backup is islanding by design, so it typically falls outside that fast track.

One current rule: storage installed after March 2026 must, in import mode, switch to export if system frequency falls below a defined threshold — G98 clauses 9.4.3 and 9.4.4, G99 clauses 11.2.3.3, 12.2.3.3 and 13.2.5.2.

Approximate road routing from Yarm, town centre to town centre.

For the county view see solar panels in North Yorkshire, or the battery side at battery storage. If your village is not listed, that is not a refusal — tell us where you are and what the job is. North of the county line, our SigenStor work is on the Sigenergy page for Teesside and County Durham.

Survey. Andy looks at the roof, the incoming supply and distribution board, the cable routes and — the one that decides the design here — where the stack can physically live. He reads your MPAN and checks the conservation-area and listed-building position before the design is fixed.

Design and network application. We size the controller and modules against your actual consumption, then pick the route: notify under G98 within 28 days of commissioning, or apply under G99 before anything is installed.

Install. Panels first where solar is part of the job, then the stack. For whole-home backup we add a Sigen Energy Gateway HomePro; Sigenergy states the HomePro SP-F (22 kW / 100 A) fully supports 100 amp single-phase backup power for the entire home, with loads prioritised so essentials keep running.

Commissioning, and the broadband problem. We commission the system and hand it over in the mySigen app, which carries dynamic tariff data from Octopus Energy for British users. Then the part that matters disproportionately out here: the warranty has an internet condition. The system enters Safe Operation Mode after 90 days offline, and if it is disconnected more than one year cumulatively the 10-year cover drops to 5 years. Tell us at survey if your broadband is unreliable.

Handover. Sigenergy's European warranty gives 10 years on the BAT modules and Energy Controller for products installed on or after 1 June 2023, with a performance guarantee of at least 60% of usable energy for 10 years or a throughput limit — 20.44 MWh for a BAT 6.0, 30.66 MWh for a BAT 10.0. We confirm the exact terms in writing with your quote.

We would rather lose the job than fit the wrong system.

• You have solar already and just want a modest battery on the end of it. If your inverter is fine, a simpler retrofit is usually the better spend — start with adding battery storage to existing solar.
• Your internet is unreliable and you do not want a cellular module. Those warranty conditions are real terms, not small print we can wave away.
• You want whole-home backup on the tightest budget. Backup needs gateway hardware on top of the stack, and an islanding system typically falls outside the storage fast track, so it goes the standard G99 route.
• The only viable slope on your listed or conservation-area property fronts a highway. Class A is explicit, and we will say so at survey rather than after a refused application.
• You want one fixed-capacity box and nothing more. A Tesla Powerwall 3 may suit you better — we are Tesla Certified too, so the advice is not tied to one supplier. Read Sigenergy vs Tesla Powerwall 3.

Where it wins, in our experience: three-phase properties, households that want the stack to grow later, and anyone who would rather have one system than three products from three manufacturers.

Sigenergy publishes no UK price for the SigenStor, and we will not invent one. Your cost depends on the controller size, the number of modules, whether solar is part of the job, whether you want the gateway for whole-home backup and — in this region more than most — the scaffold and access. Ask us for a fixed price: Andy surveys the property and you get a written, itemised quote. See also our SigenStor cost guide.

On VAT, HMRC's Notice 708/6 sets a zero rate on the installation of certain specified energy-saving materials from 1 May 2023 to 31 March 2027, reverting to 5% from 1 April 2027, and from 1 February 2024 electrical storage batteries in residential accommodation qualify — including retrofits and standalone batteries charged from the grid.

Get in touch, or read what customers say on our reviews page.