Solis IntelliHome and FlexHome batteries: what UK homes should check

Solis has moved further into home battery storage with a new residential portfolio under the SolisStorage brand. The useful point for UK homeowners is not just that Solis now has more battery options. It is that the options are aimed at different home types, different capacity needs and different installation constraints.

The launch covers three main battery families:

• IntelliHome OD, a lower-capacity outdoor wall or floor-mounted battery range;
• FlexHome L, a low-voltage modular range that can scale from small to large homes;
• FlexHome H, a high-voltage tower range aimed at larger storage requirements.

SolisStorage lists the IntelliHome OD range at 5, 10 and 16 kWh, the FlexHome L range from 5 to 40 kWh, and the FlexHome H range from 15 to 40 kWh. pv magazine also reported the wider SolisStorage residential launch in March 2026, describing the portfolio as Solis moving beyond inverter manufacturing into a more complete storage-system offer.

That is useful hardware news.

But for customers, the more important question is practical:

If I install one of these batteries, will my solar, battery, EV charger and tariff actually make sense day to day?

That is where the software layer still matters.

The quick version

If you are comparing these batteries, think about the home first, not the product name.

• Choose IntelliHome OD if the home needs a smaller Solis battery and outdoor siting is important.
• Choose FlexHome L if the home needs low-voltage modular storage that can scale over time.
• Choose FlexHome H if the home has larger demand and the installer is designing around a high-voltage Solis battery setup.
• Check the inverter model, battery compatibility, DNO/export requirements and installer commissioning before assuming any battery will suit the site.
• After installation, check the software view: tariff, EV charging, battery reserve, grid import/export and daily cost.

The battery stores energy. The software explains whether the stored energy is being used at the right time.

What changed with the Solis battery line-up

For years, many UK solar homes used Solis as the inverter layer and paired it with third-party battery storage. That can work well, but the customer experience often depends on exactly which inverter, battery, meter, CT, charger and tariff are present.

The new SolisStorage battery portfolio gives installers a more Solis-aligned battery route.

IntelliHome OD: smaller outdoor battery installs

IntelliHome OD is the compact end of the range. SolisStorage lists 5 kWh, 10 kWh and 16 kWh models, using LiFePO4 chemistry, low-voltage operation and IP66 protection.

The important customer use case is simple: a home that wants Solis battery storage but may not have an ideal indoor utility room or garage space.

That does not mean it can go anywhere. Outdoor battery siting still needs installer judgement, manufacturer instructions, cable routing, clearance, weather exposure, fire safety, warranty conditions and local electrical rules. But it gives installers another practical option where indoor siting is awkward.

FlexHome L: modular low-voltage storage

FlexHome L is the broadest capacity range. SolisStorage lists 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35 and 40 kWh variants.

This is the range to look at when the customer wants a modular battery path. A small or medium home may start lower. A larger home, EV home or future heat-pump home may need more storage.

The useful question is not only "how many kWh can I buy?".

It is:

• how much usable storage does the home need overnight?
• how quickly can the battery charge in the cheap window?
• how much discharge power is needed during the evening peak?
• does the inverter limit the usable charge/discharge behaviour?
• will the customer's tariff reward charging, holding or exporting?

A big battery with the wrong tariff setup can still behave badly.

FlexHome H: high-voltage storage for larger homes

FlexHome H is the high-voltage tower range, listed by SolisStorage from 15 to 40 kWh.

This is more likely to be relevant for larger homes, higher winter demand, three-phase designs, higher-power hybrid inverter setups or homes planning around heat-pump and EV demand.

High-voltage does not automatically mean "better" for every home. It means the installer is designing a different type of system. The customer should ask what problem the high-voltage setup solves for their property: capacity, power, efficiency, phase arrangement, backup design, cable runs, or future load growth.

Why the best battery choice depends on the tariff

Battery sizing is not only a solar question.

In the UK, it is also a tariff question.

A battery home on a flat import tariff behaves differently from a home on Octopus Go, Intelligent Octopus Go, Agile, Flux, Cosy or a manually configured time-of-use tariff. The same battery can look sensible or disappointing depending on when it charges, when it discharges and what export is worth.

For example:

• On a cheap overnight tariff, the customer may want the battery ready before morning and evening demand.
• On Agile, the cheapest windows can move every day, so a fixed charging schedule may miss value.
• On an export-focused tariff, exporting may sometimes be worth considering, but only when import prices, battery losses and reserve needs make sense.
• With an EV, cheap car charging can accidentally pull energy from the home battery if the system does not understand the EV load.

That is why a customer should not judge a battery only by its datasheet.

The right question is:

Does this battery have enough useful capacity and control context for my tariff, EV charging and daily demand?

We explain the tariff side in more detail in Octopus Agile vs Go for home battery owners and manual tariff setup for solar battery and EV homes.

The EV problem many customers only discover later

A home battery is normally designed to support the home when demand appears.

That sounds straightforward until the home adds an EV charger.

An EV charger can look like a very large household load. If the car starts charging during the day, the battery may discharge into the EV session. From the inverter's point of view, it is helping the home. From the customer's point of view, stored solar may have been used to charge the car, leaving the battery low before the evening peak.

That is not a Solis-specific fault. It is a whole-home coordination problem.

It is especially common when the customer has:

• a Solis hybrid inverter;
• a home battery;
• a Zappi or another EV charger;
• Octopus Intelligent Go or another smart EV tariff;
• no single app explaining how the tariff, charger and battery affect each other.

That is why we wrote Octopus Intelligent Go: what really happens to your home battery and why does my home battery drain when Octopus charges my EV?.

The battery hardware can be perfectly capable and still feel confusing if the EV and tariff context are missing.

What 1app.energy adds after installation

1app.energy is not a replacement for SolisStorage, SolisCloud or installer commissioning.

The installer still needs to choose the correct Solis inverter and battery combination, commission the site properly, handle DNO/export paperwork and leave the physical system safe.

1app.energy sits above that as the customer-facing software layer for supported homes.

For supported Solis homes, it helps bring together:

• live solar, battery, grid and home-load context;
• battery state of charge and reserve behaviour;
• EV charging context where supported;
• Octopus tariff data where connected and supported;
• manual tariff data for other tariffs;
• daily cost, import and export visibility;
• customer-enabled Smart Control where the backend confirms the device path is supported.

That last line matters.

Battery control should not be presented as magic. It depends on the connected inverter, verified credentials, telemetry freshness, customer settings and the current control mode. If the control path is not verified, the honest behaviour is to show visibility first rather than pretending every installation can be automated immediately.

For customers comparing Solis batteries, that is the practical value:

Choose the right hardware, then make sure the software explains the whole home.

What to ask your installer before choosing a Solis battery

Before committing to IntelliHome OD, FlexHome L or FlexHome H, ask your installer these questions.

1. Which inverter will this battery use?

Battery compatibility is not just brand-to-brand. It depends on the exact inverter model, firmware, meter arrangement and commissioning setup.

Ask the installer to confirm the Solis inverter model, battery compatibility and whether the chosen setup supports the behaviour you care about: backup, grid charging, export control, three-phase behaviour, EV coordination or tariff-aware operation.

2. What is the usable battery target for my home?

Do not size the battery only around panel capacity.

A useful battery size depends on:

• evening load;
• winter demand;
• EV charging pattern;
• heat-pump demand if present;
• cheap-rate window length;
• charge rate;
• reserve level;
• export rate.

A 5 kWh battery can be enough for some homes. A 30 or 40 kWh battery can be sensible for others. The difference is the load profile, not just the roof size.

3. How will the battery behave during cheap-rate periods?

Ask whether the system will charge during off-peak windows, whether that schedule is fixed, and how it changes when the tariff changes.

If the customer is on Agile, fixed schedules are often too blunt. If the customer is on Go or another fixed cheap window, the question becomes whether the battery can reach the desired level before the cheap period ends.

4. How will EV charging be handled?

If the home has an EV charger, ask whether the battery can accidentally discharge into the car.

If the answer is "the customer can manage it manually", that may be fine for a simple home, but it is not the same as a coordinated whole-home view.

For Zappi homes, CT mapping also matters. A wrong CT role or direction can make a dashboard look convincing while describing the wrong physical flow. See Zappi CT mapping for solar battery homes.

5. What should the customer check after the first week?

The first week after installation is when the customer should check whether the system is behaving sensibly.

Look at:

• battery percentage before the evening peak;
• grid import during expensive periods;
• whether EV sessions pulled from the home battery;
• whether solar export makes sense against the tariff;
• whether daily cost matches the expected tariff behaviour;
• whether the dashboard is using verified data from the correct installation.

Our guide on how to read inverter data to spot energy waste is useful here.

The software gap does not disappear because the battery is newer

A modern Solis battery range is good news for the UK market.

It gives installers clearer battery options and gives customers more ways to size storage properly. IntelliHome OD, FlexHome L and FlexHome H each solve a different hardware problem.

But the customer software gap remains.

The customer still needs to know:

• when the battery charged;
• why it discharged;
• whether EV charging affected it;
• whether the tariff helped or hurt;
• whether export was useful;
• whether the home imported when it should not have;
• whether the system is ready for the next expensive period.

That is the part 1app.energy is built to help with for supported homes.

Final thought

The Solis IntelliHome and FlexHome ranges are worth watching because they give UK customers more structured battery choices: compact outdoor storage, modular low-voltage storage and larger high-voltage storage.

But a battery should not be judged only by capacity.

For a modern UK home, the real test is whether solar, battery, EV charging and tariff behaviour make sense together.

If you are planning a Solis battery installation, ask your installer about the hardware fit first. Then make sure the customer-facing software layer is ready too.

Visit 1app.energy to request an onboarding review for a supported Solis home.