Amendment 4 to BS 7671 brings dedicated requirements for stationary secondary batteries. That is a good indicator of where commercial electrical work is heading: storage has moved from an optional extra bolted onto a solar array to a designed component of a building's energy system.
The commercial energy ecosystem
On a modern commercial site, the individual technologies are increasingly one system:
- Solar PV generating on site, often across large roof areas on warehouses, retail and industrial units
- Battery energy storage smoothing demand, supporting tariff optimisation and improving resilience
- EV charging infrastructure adding significant and variable load
- Metering, monitoring and controls determining how the site actually behaves
- The grid interface, protection and, where relevant, export arrangements
Clients rarely want five suppliers for one energy strategy. Contractors who can design, install, commission and maintain across that chain — or who can at least speak fluently across all of it — become the firm the facilities or estates team calls first.
What Amendment 4 pushes contractors to be sharper on
Without reproducing the standard, the practical themes for battery installations are familiar to anyone who has worked on them properly: system architecture and the role of hybrid or bidirectional inverters; protective devices and disconnection arrangements suited to the source characteristics; location, access and ventilation; fire risk considerations and separation from occupied areas; labelling and emergency isolation that is intelligible to someone who did not install the system; and commissioning, handover and maintenance records.
Where the work comes from
Commercial storage demand rarely arrives labelled as 'battery work'. It appears inside energy strategies, net-zero commitments, resilience reviews, EV rollouts, planned capital programmes and building upgrades driven by energy performance targets — including the longer-term direction on commercial EPC ratings. That is why the firms winning it tend to be positioned in front of asset managers, estates teams and FM providers before the project is defined.
Who we want on the network
Regency is actively expanding coverage of electrical contractors with genuine commercial renewable and energy-systems capability: solar PV, battery storage, hybrid inverter systems, EV infrastructure, metering and monitoring, and the switchgear and protection work that sits underneath. Suitable accreditation, competent design capability and demonstrable commercial project history matter here more than volume of domestic installs.
Official sources
Frequently asked questions
- Does BS 7671 Amendment 4 cover battery storage specifically?
- Yes. The IET lists stationary secondary batteries among the significant changes introduced by Amendment 4, published on 15 April 2026.
- Do I need renewables accreditation to be considered?
- It depends on the work. Regency's vetting looks at qualifications, accreditations, insurance and relevant commercial project experience for the categories of work your business is presenting.
- Is commercial storage work different from domestic?
- Substantially. Commercial schemes typically involve larger systems, more complex protection and metering arrangements, formal commissioning evidence and stakeholders such as asset managers, estates teams and FM providers.
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