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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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Batpred

(@batpred)

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Topic starter 26/11/2025 11:09 pm

Posted by: @bash

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Well that sounds positive. When you say modbus sensors, what does that mean?

How did you set this up, what equipment did you buy/attach to the inverter?

In my case, I have Home Assistant (HA) running in an old pc. HA connects to my local network. @majordennisbloodnok published a great overview here on how to start HA, other hardware options like raspberry pi etc. But in brief, in HA you can run integrations. I had deployed someone's code to have an integration to Solis inverters using modbus (a protocol for that local interface).

As for what hardware I used:

My Solis inverter came with a USB dongle that has wifi, gprs and bluetooth (S2-WL-ST USB) . This also has an ethernet port (that connects to that modbus interface). I just had to use a normal ethernet cable (with RJ45 ends) to connect the dongle to the local network. I also had to make sure that the IP address given to the Solis is fixed in my local network hub (because I setup modbus to use that IP address).

The deployment of someone else's code to use modbus is made fairly simple in HA, you typically do not need to change code, it is a matter of configuring some parameters when you first create that integration. HA also makes it simpler to apply updates, etc. But the updates also build up, so you could also "go it alone" and just run the code separately.

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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Joined: 2 months ago

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26/11/2025 11:47 pm

@batpred

Thanks. Well I didn't know the Solis dongle had an RJ45 port. I've just noticed the base cap and upon unscrewing it there is the RJ45 port!

I'll take a look at this over the next few days, so you might find me asking a couple more questions!

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