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Solis S6-EH1P8K-L-PLUS – Why I Chose It and What I’ve Learned So Far

Batpred · 2025-10-20T20:32:36Z

I ended up with a Solis S6-EH1P8K-L-PLUS (8 kW) hybrid inverter, and so thought it might be useful to share why. A hybrid inverter is basically the brain that sits between your solar panels, batteries, and the grid, deciding—many times per second—where power should flow. If you picture a normal solar inverter, it just takes DC power from your panels and turns it into AC for the house or export. A hybrid inverter does that and manages batteries: charging them when there’s surplus solar or cheap grid energy, and discharging when prices rise or the sun’s gone. Here’s what it quietly juggles in the background: ☀️ From solar → house / battery / grid 🔋 From battery → house / grid ⚡ From grid → house / battery (if allowed) So it’s not just converting; it’s scheduling and balancing. That’s why you see models like the Solis S6-EH1P8K-L-PLUS called “hybrid” or “energy storage inverters.” Needs and goals For a typical 4–5 bed house with an EV in SW England, my goal was flexibility—avoiding double work later when the house grows and needs an extra EV point, a heat pump, or more storage (has anyone ever had an installer actually praise what was already there? Exactly.) Disclosure: My engineering and general science background, IET membership etc means this was an option for us. Essentially tinkering within reason. What mattered to me ⚡ Fast battery charge/discharge rates and strong export capability. 🧰 Manufacturer support we can actually reach—too many stories of pop-up installers disappearing. 🔌 Compatibility with a wide range of batteries and accessories for future expansion. 🔋 The cherry on the cake was being able to handle power cuts gracefully—some of these units can keep a home running for days if paired with enough storage. So far, the Solis has been a solid, expandable bit of kit. We only had it installed after we had the consumer unit swapped with one with the latest safety features and plenty of capacity to grow. One quirk worth flagging:It quietly “cleans up” some of the electrical imperfections we get from the grid. In my patch, the DNO’s neutral feed isn’t what you’d call rock-steady. That means a conventional 30 mA RCD may not behave as you expect. This is usually needed if you’re planning to bury cables in the wall—many electricians prefer to use plastic ducting for this reason and speed of installation. Speak to your electrician for advice. In practice, the inverter smooths out stray currents between neutral and earth. Some folks in the forum call these “leaky” inverters—a non-technical nickname that sounds worse than it is. It doesn’t waste measurable energy or affect your bill; your meter is on the live conductor. The “leak” current is tiny, and the inverter is tidying up the messy bits of the supply than the idea of spilling juice. All in all, it was a capable, forward-looking choice if you’re also after a system that can grow with your needs. Notes You can find more background and our journey so far here. Please do not interpret it as a recommendation, there are plenty of other inverters that can do this. Just not many options that handle 8kw (a standard EV charger) and retail for around £1300.

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Bash

(@bash)

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26/11/2025 2:43 pm

@betpred

If you are using the Solis data in HA through the Solis dongle, as far as I can tell it is still only updating every 5 minutes, unless you have mlade some hardwire changes to your Solis inverter.

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Bash

(@bash)

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26/11/2025 2:46 pm

@batpred

I want to see in real time how much the inverter is discharging our battery banks.

The overall 5 minutes view is ok for a quick overview once a while through the Solis Cloud.

Integrating this into HA seems pointless if it's only polling the data every 5 minutes.

This post was modified 2 hours ago by Bash

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Majordennisbloodnok

(@majordennisbloodnok)

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26/11/2025 3:26 pm

Posted by: @bash

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@batpred

I want to see in real time how much the inverter is discharging our battery banks.

The overall 5 minutes view is ok for a quick overview once a while through the Solis Cloud.

Integrating this into HA seems pointless if it's only polling the data every 5 minutes.

@bash, I'd like to clarify; are you asking if it's possible to create a real time connection to an inverter like @batpred's?

If so, whilst I can't absolutely guarantee that that particular model of inverter is compatible, in general terms the Home Assistant integration most likely is the one I use for my Growatt - the SolaX Inverter Modbus integration. It certainly supports Solis, Sofar, SolaX and Growatt although the documentation is a little old and incomplete so there is simply no mention of newer inverter model numbers.

If this is the information you're after, I can confirm that two wires from within a network cable plugged into the RJ45 socket set aside for RS485 connections can be connected to an RS485 to Ethernet adapter and the HA integration pointed at that adapter across the network. Mine polls every 15 seconds. Alternatively, using the same modbus setup (or an RS485 to serial adapter of some sort) you could go down the same route @cathoderay has trailblazed and write your own python scripts in which case you'd be polling as often as you want.

105 m2 bungalow in South East England
Mitsubishi Ecodan 8.5 kW air source heat pump
18 x 360W solar panels
1 x 6 kW GroWatt battery and SPH5000 inverter
1 x Myenergi Zappi
1 x VW ID3
Raised beds for home-grown veg and chickens for eggs

"Semper in excretia; sumus solum profundum variat"

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Batpred

(@batpred)

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Topic starter 26/11/2025 3:49 pm

Posted by: @bash

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@batpred

If you are using the Solis data in HA through the Solis dongle, as far as I can tell it is still only updating every 5 minutes, unless you have mlade some hardwire changes to your Solis inverter.

I must say I had not noticed the frequency until this morning as I was sending Solis some graphs on usage. They seem to trust Solis AI less than it deserves!

I had some challenge keeping the Solax modbus integration that @majordennisbloodnok mentioned going (it did work the first time, just had to select Solis in the window where I configured it). But there is now also a Solis modbus on HA - that served my purpose. With my USB dongle, I just used Rj45 cable from a wifi retrans.

To be aware, that if you want to use both soliscloud and modbus, you may need to set a "number of connections" parameter. I think I had done that using Soliscloud via the browser so did not come across any limitation.

16kWh Seplos Fogstar battery; 8kW Solis S6-EH1P8K-L-PLUS hybrid inverter; Ohme Home Pro EV charger; 100Amp head, HA lab on mini PC

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Bash

(@bash)

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26/11/2025 4:15 pm

@batpred

It should be easy to see in HA if it's real time as you will see the inverter/battery discharge rate changing frequently, certainly more than every 5 minutes.

That is the data everyone wants from Solis, it just seems quite tricky to get that to work.

I'd hoped that I could integrate the Solis API data, which is easy to get from Solis, on the tablet in my kitchen so I can monitor in real time if I hit the inverter discharge limit.

Without it in real time it's useless, as you only get a snap shot of that micro second and then have to wait another 5 minutes for the next data point.

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