GivEnergy vs Tesla Powerwall 3: What This Comparison Means Now
This used to be an easy page to write. GivEnergy for most people, Tesla if you needed proper whole-home backup or you wanted the badge. The price gap did the arguing.
That answer no longer holds, because GivEnergy Ltd has been in administration since 9 April 2026. So this page is now three different answers depending on where you're standing:
- You already own a GivEnergy. Keep it. It works, and replacing a working battery is a waste of several thousand pounds. Go and read our GivEnergy All-In-One owners' page, which covers what happens to your warranty and what to do about it.
- You've been quoted one. The hardware is fine. The ten-year relationship behind it is the question. There are four things to ask before you sign, further down.
- You're starting from scratch. The real comparison isn't GivEnergy against Tesla any more. It's Tesla against Fox ESS and Sunsynk, and the honest framing is that none of them pay for themselves inside the warranty.
What Changed
| Company | Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
| GIVENERGY LTD (the trading company) | 11571089 | In administration since 9 April 2026 |
| GIVENERGY COMMERCIAL LIMITED | 14546237 | Liquidation |
| GIVENERGY GROUP LIMITED | 14404895 | Active |
| GIVENERGY SOFTWARE LIMITED | 14899764 | Active |
Source: Companies House, checked 18 September 2026. Worth being precise about this rather than declaring the brand dead: the company that sold most UK All-In-Ones is in administration, but the holding and software companies are still listed as active, givenergy.com is still live, the customer portal still logs in, and the All In One 2 is still being sold and fitted.
What nobody can tell you is whether a warranty claim in 2029 gets honoured. That uncertainty is the entire substance of this comparison now, so we're not going to bury it under a spec table.
The Head to Head
| Feature | GivEnergy All In One 2 | Tesla Powerwall 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Capacity | 13.5 kWh, up to 40.5 kWh with two expansion batteries | 13.5 kWh, up to 54 kWh with expansion packs |
| Installed cost | £4,500–£6,000 | £8,500–£10,500 |
| Manufacturer status | GivEnergy Ltd in administration | Trading normally |
| Warranty | 10 years on paper, enforceability now uncertain | 10 years, published by Tesla |
| Backup power | Needs a Gateway 2 alongside the battery | Whole-home backup built in, automatic switchover |
| Inverter | Built in. AC-coupled as standard, needs the MPPT unit for DC hybrid | Built in, 3 MPPTs, DC-coupled to your panels |
| Chemistry | LFP | LFP |
| Company base | Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire | USA, with a UK certified installer network |
| Support route | Your installer, then the administrators | Your installer, then Tesla Energy |
On the hardware alone it's closer than the price gap suggests, and it always was. Both are LFP, both are 13.5 kWh, both have the inverter in the box. Tesla's genuine hardware advantages are that whole-home backup is included rather than an extra unit, and that it arrives DC-coupled to your panels as standard, where the GivEnergy needs the MPPT accessory to do the same job.
The Price Gap Is No Longer the Argument
Four thousand pounds is a lot of money, and for two years it was the right answer. A saving is only a saving if the thing behind it is still standing, though, and that's what's changed.
Be clear about what the Tesla premium actually buys, because it isn't performance. It's whole-home backup as standard, a company that will still be answering the phone, and a warranty you can rely on. If none of those three matter to you, you shouldn't be paying £4,000 for them, and you probably shouldn't be buying a Powerwall either. You should be looking at Fox ESS or Sunsynk, which sit at roughly the old GivEnergy price with manufacturers that aren't insolvent.
If You Own a GivEnergy All-In-One
- Don't replace it. The battery doesn't know its manufacturer is in administration. Swap it when it fails, not because of a news story.
- Stop relying on the manufacturer warranty and find the cover that doesn't depend on GivEnergy: your installer's obligations under the Consumer Rights Act, Section 75 if you paid anything on a credit card, and the insurance-backed warranty that came with your MCS install.
- Find out whether your control is cloud-based or local. If a third party optimises your battery through GivEnergy's cloud API, that link is only as durable as the cloud. Local control over your own network isn't.
The full checklist is on our GivEnergy All-In-One page.
If You've Been Quoted One
Installers are still quoting the All In One 2, quite legitimately. Ask these four before you sign:
- Which legal entity is the warranty with? Get the name and company number in writing, then check it yourself on Companies House.
- What does the installer guarantee on their own account, independently of the manufacturer, and for how many years?
- Is there an insurance-backed warranty certificate, and who underwrites it?
- Is the price reflecting the risk? If it isn't clearly cheaper than a Fox ESS or Sunsynk system of the same size, you're carrying the uncertainty for nothing.
Vague answers to any of those are your answer.
If You're Choosing From Scratch
Here's the part most battery comparisons skip. Neither of these pays for itself inside its warranty, and you should know that before you spend the money.
Take a typical setup: a 4 kWp array generating about 3,800 kWh a year (950 kWh per kWp, the figure we use site-wide) on a home using around 4,000 kWh. Without a battery you'll self-consume roughly 45% of what you generate. With one, around 75%. That's about 1,140 extra kilowatt-hours a year kept rather than exported, and each one is worth the difference between the 26.32p you'd have paid to import and the 12p Outgoing Octopus pays you to export. Call it £163 a year.
At £9,500 for a Powerwall 3, that's 58 years. At £5,000 for a 13.5 kWh alternative, it's 31 years. Time-of-use tariff optimisation improves both materially, because charging overnight at 8p on Intelligent Octopus Go and using it at the 26.32p day rate is worth more per cycle than storing your own solar. It still doesn't bring either inside a ten-year warranty. Our Powerwall 3 page has an estimator that lets you run your own numbers, and it lands in the same place.
So buy a battery for what it actually delivers: keeping the lights on when the grid drops, using your own solar in the evening instead of selling it for 12p, and the flexibility to move your consumption onto cheap overnight rates. Those are real. A return on investment isn't, and any salesperson who tells you otherwise is doing sums we'd like to see.
The Verdict
Own a GivEnergy? Keep it, and spend an hour sorting your paperwork out instead of worrying.
Buying today and backup power matters? Powerwall 3. Whole-home backup is built in rather than bolted on, and the company behind it is not in question. Go in knowing it's a resilience purchase.
Buying today on a budget? Fox ESS or Sunsynk, not GivEnergy, and not Tesla. You get the old GivEnergy price point without the open question at the end of it.
For the detail on each, see our GivEnergy All-In-One page and Tesla Powerwall 3 review, or the full solar battery storage guide.