Solis brings three new home batteries to the UK: IntelliHome OD, FlexHome L, and FlexHome H

Solis, one of the world's largest string inverter manufacturers, is bringing a properly segmented home battery line-up to the UK. Instead of a single SKU stretched across every use case, the launch covers three distinct ranges: IntelliHome OD, FlexHome L, and FlexHome H. Between them they span 5 kWh starter installs to 40 kWh whole-home and off-grid systems, in both wall-mounted and stacked tower form factors, and in both low-voltage and high-voltage architectures.

All three are LiFePO4, all three carry an IP66 rating, all three are warrantied to more than 6,000 cycles or 10 years, and all three include a built-in fire-suppression module — a spec that is becoming a hard requirement for UK home insurers and an increasingly common ask from MCS installers.

The line-up

1. IntelliHome OD — outdoor wall/floor battery, 5–16 kWh

The smallest of the three, designed to be mounted outdoors on a wall or floor.

• Capacities: 5 kWh, 10 kWh, 16 kWh
• Voltage: Low voltage, 44.8–57.6 V
• Cell: 100 Ah LiFePO4
• Charge/discharge current: 50 A on the 5 kWh, 100 A on the 10 and 16 kWh units
• Self-discharge: less than 3% per month
• Protection: IP66, plus C5-grade anti-corrosion treatment for coastal and humid environments
• Compatibility: Auto-recognised by the full Solis hybrid inverter portfolio
• Servicing: Remote firmware upgrades, no on-site visit required

The "OD" suffix is the key differentiator — this unit is built for installs where there is no usable indoor space (no garage, no utility room, no plant cupboard). C5 anti-corrosion is specifically aimed at UK coastal homes, where most competitors derate or void warranty.

2. FlexHome L — low-voltage stackable, 5–40 kWh

The mid-tier and the most flexible of the three.

• Capacities: 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 kWh (eight options, 5 kWh increments)
• Voltage: Low voltage, 44.8–57.6 V
• Cell capacity: 100 Ah (5 kWh) up to 800 Ah (40 kWh)
• Recommended C-rate: 0.5C charge/discharge
• Stackable: Up to 4 parallel units
• Self-discharge: less than 3% per month
• Protection: IP66, C5 anti-corrosion, fire-suppression module, independent thermal insulation
• Servicing: Remote firmware upgrades

The pitch here is start small, grow later. A homeowner can fit a smaller unit today and stack additional modules as load grows (EV, heat pump, additional occupants) without replacing the BMS or rewiring. Same chemistry, same voltage class, same warranty.

3. FlexHome H — high-voltage stacked tower, 15–40 kWh

The top of the range, and the one that will matter most for UK heat-pump and off-grid customers.

• Capacities: 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 kWh (six options)
• Voltage: High voltage, scaling with capacity:
  • 15 kWh: 134.4–172.8 V
  • 20 kWh: 179.2–230.4 V
  • 25 kWh: 224–288 V
  • 30 kWh: 268.8–345.6 V
  • 35 kWh: 313.6–403.2 V
  • 40 kWh: 358.4–460.8 V
• Cell: 100 Ah LiFePO4
• Recommended C-rate: 0.5C; 50 A recommended current
• Form factor: Stacked tower, up to 4 parallel towers for expansion
• Protection: IP66, C5 anti-corrosion, fire-suppression module
• Servicing: Remote firmware upgrades

High voltage matters for two reasons: lower current for the same power means thinner cabling and lower I²R losses, and high-voltage hybrid inverters typically achieve higher round-trip efficiency at the battery–inverter boundary. For UK households running heat pumps, where winter daily loads can be several times higher than a typical non-heat-pump home, that efficiency gap compounds across thousands of cycles.

How the three compare

What is notable about this launch for the UK market

A few things stand out compared with batteries already shipping in the UK from Tesla, GivEnergy, Fox ESS, Pylontech, and Puredrive:

1. C5 anti-corrosion as standard across all three. Most low-cost LFP competitors quote C3 or C4. C5 is the highest atmospheric corrosivity class in ISO 12944 and is typically reserved for offshore and industrial gear. For coastal UK homes — Brighton, Cornwall, the East Coast, Scottish islands — this is genuinely useful, not marketing fluff.

2. Built-in fire suppression on every unit. Several UK home insurers and a growing number of building control officers are starting to ask whether home batteries have integrated fire suppression. Solis ships it standard rather than as an upsell.

3. One BMS family across the range. Auto-recognition with the full Solis hybrid inverter portfolio means installers do not have to relearn commissioning between SKUs, and homeowners stacking later get consistent BMS behaviour.

4. Capacity granularity. FlexHome L's 5 kWh-step ladder from 5 kWh to 40 kWh is unusually fine-grained for the UK market — most rivals push you up in jumps that do not match how UK homes actually scale (terraced → semi → detached → heat pump → EV).

5. High-voltage option for heat-pump homes. With the UK's Boiler Upgrade Scheme accelerating ASHP installs, the FlexHome H high-voltage tower is timed for a market that increasingly needs more usable storage and higher continuous discharge.

6. Remote firmware upgrades. No truck rolls for BMS or safety-related updates — meaningful for UK installers running thin service margins.

The gap the hardware does not fix on its own

Solis has done its half of the job well. But anyone who has lived with a home battery in the UK for more than a few months knows the hardware is only half the story.

The UK is now a dynamic tariff market. Octopus Agile prices change every 30 minutes. Octopus Go and Cosy have cheap windows that move seasonally. Intelligent Octopus Go (IOG) hands EV charging slots to the supplier's algorithm and shifts them overnight. Smart Export Guarantee export rates are typically a fraction of peak import rates. None of this is visible inside the SolisCloud app, and none of it is something a battery's default schedule can react to on its own. Most UK homeowners end up with a significant battery investment making a fraction of the savings the hardware is genuinely capable of, simply because nothing is telling it when energy is cheap, when it is expensive, and when to hold.

That is the gap 1app.energy is built to close.

Pairing IntelliHome or FlexHome with 1app.energy

1app.energy is a UK-built SaaS that sits on top of your Solis inverter and battery and turns it into a tariff-aware, self-optimising system. It is designed around the realities of the UK market — Octopus Agile, Go, Cosy, Intelligent Octopus Go, SEG export, and the increasingly common combination of solar + battery + EV + heat pump under one roof.

Out of the box, pairing any of the three Solis batteries above with 1app.energy gives a homeowner:

• Dynamic tariff arbitrage on Octopus. Connect your Octopus account and 1app reads your live tariff — Agile, Go, Cosy, Flux, IOG — every 30 minutes and decides whether your battery should charge from grid, hold, or discharge. On Agile it targets the cheapest half-hour slots automatically, even as they shift. On Go and Cosy it sizes the cheap-rate top-up to your forecast evening load so you are never short and never overcharging at peak. For more on which Octopus tariff suits a battery home, see Octopus Agile vs Go for a home battery.

• Works with any UK supplier, not just Octopus. If you are with British Gas, EDF, OVO, E.ON, Scottish Power, Outfox, EBICo, or anyone else, 1app still works brilliantly with your Solis setup. You enter your import and export rates (and time-of-use windows, if applicable) once, and the same arbitrage engine, dashboard, and controls run on top. The Octopus integration is the easiest path because it is automatic — but it is not a requirement for the SaaS to deliver value.

Smart EV coordination — even without a Zappi

This is where 1app.energy genuinely separates from anything bundled with the inverter or battery itself.

If you connect your Octopus account and you are on Intelligent Octopus Go, 1app.energy will prevent your Solis battery from discharging into your car during the IOG smart-charging slots — regardless of which car charger you own. Whether your charger is a Zappi, Ohme, Hypervolt, EO, Wallbox, Andersen, Easee, Pod Point, BG SyncEV, or a basic untethered 7 kW unit from your installer, the logic is the same:

• During an IOG smart slot, your car charges from the grid at the discounted IOG rate.
• At the same time, 1app charges the Solis battery from the grid at that same cheap rate, using the IOG window as a free top-up window for the house battery as well.
• 1app blocks the battery from discharging into the EV charger so you do not leak stored energy into a vehicle the grid is already feeding at the cheaper smart-tariff rate.

The customer gets a double benefit: the EV charges cheap, and the house battery refills cheap, in the same overnight window — and then both feed the home through the expensive evening peak the next day. This works with every car charger on the UK market, because the gating is done at the battery level using your tariff schedule, not at the charger level.

The only thing Zappi specifically gives you today is deeper integration: live charger telemetry, session control, and solar-diverter-aware coordination, because Zappi is the EV charger 1app.energy currently integrates directly with. More charger brands are on the roadmap. But the core "do not drain the battery into the car during cheap windows" protection is charger-agnostic and benefits every Solis battery owner on a smart EV tariff. For the underlying problem this is solving, see Octopus Intelligent Go: what actually happens to your home battery.

Other things you get out of the box

• Solar self-consumption that respects the export gap. Because UK export rates are typically a fraction of peak import rates, every kWh you keep at home is worth materially more than every kWh exported. 1app prioritises solar → home loads → battery → export in that order, and shows you the live flow.

• Heat pump awareness. For homes with the FlexHome H and an air-source heat pump, 1app moves heat-pump runtime into cheap windows where possible, banks solar in shoulder seasons, and keeps continuous discharge inside the battery's healthy band. For the joined-up picture across heat pump, battery, and EV, see Heat pump, battery, and EV: why a smart tariff is not enough.

• A real net daily cost, not just kWh figures. The dashboard shows your actual pounds and pence — import cost, export credit, net spend — using your real tariff (auto-pulled on Octopus, manually configured on other suppliers). It is how you know your battery is paying for itself this week, and which settings to tune.

• Visibility across multiple homes. If you have a holiday let, a relative's place, or a small portfolio, 1app's installation switcher lets you name and monitor each one from a single login. One dashboard, several bills under control.

• Better daily control without fighting the manufacturer app. SolisCloud is a fine commissioning tool but a frustrating daily-use tool. 1app gives homeowners a clean, mobile-friendly view and one-tap controls for the things they actually do — boost the battery, hold for a price spike, override a charging session.

What this looks like in practice

• A coastal Cornwall home fits IntelliHome OD 10 kWh outside on a C5-rated wall. They are on Octopus Go. 1app charges the battery in the cheap overnight window, discharges it through the evening peak, and the homeowner can watch their net daily cost trend down on the dashboard from week one.

• A Manchester semi has an EV on Intelligent Octopus Go with an Ohme charger (not a Zappi). They fit a FlexHome L 15 kWh. The Ohme handles the car. 1app handles the battery — refilling it from the grid in the same IOG smart slots and blocking any discharge into the car. Cheap house energy and a cheap car charge from the same overnight window, every night.

• A rural Scottish detached with an air-source heat pump and no Octopus account is on a fixed dual-rate tariff with EDF. They fit a FlexHome H 30 kWh. The homeowner enters their day and night rates in 1app once. From then on the battery loads up on the night rate, runs the heat pump's morning and evening cycles from stored energy, and tops up from solar through the day. Same outcome, different supplier.

The hardware is what makes it possible. The software is what makes it pay back.

Availability

Solis is rolling the IntelliHome and FlexHome ranges out through its UK installer network. If you are at the quoting stage, ask your installer which of the three fits your home — and then connect it to 1app.energy during commissioning so the battery is earning its keep from day one rather than months later when you finally get round to tuning it yourself.

A well-specced Solis battery, paired with software that actually understands the UK tariff landscape — Octopus or otherwise — and that protects you from the most common expensive mistake (draining a home battery into a car the grid is already feeding at smart-tariff rates), is the closest thing the UK home energy market has to a one-decision answer right now.

If you already have a Solis system, you can connect it to 1app.energy in a few minutes, or read our guide to getting your SolisCloud API key first.