7.125kWp with Anker SOLIX storage on Bath Road, Reading

The brief

Generation and storage sized together rather than separately: an array big enough to be worth having, and a battery big enough that the electricity produced at midday is still available when it is actually wanted.

The array

Fifteen AIKO A475-MAH54Mw 475W panels were installed, giving 7.125 kWp of installed capacity.

The panels were set at approximately a 20-degree inclination, using the available roof area effectively while keeping a clean line across the run. High-output modules matter here — the same capacity in older panels would have needed noticeably more roof.

The Anker SOLIX system

The array was paired with an Anker SOLIX X1 hybrid energy storage system: an 8 kW X1-H8K-T hybrid inverter managing the flow between the array, the building and the grid, with two X1-B5-H battery modules giving approximately 10 kWh of usable storage.

A hybrid inverter handles the array and the battery in one unit, which keeps the installation simpler than bolting an AC-coupled battery onto a string inverter later.

How the system works

In daylight, generation is used on site first. Surplus above immediate demand charges the 10 kWh battery. Only once the battery is sufficiently charged does anything go back to the grid.

When generation drops — late afternoon, evening, poor weather — stored electricity is used instead of imported electricity. That shift is where most of the value sits, because the gap between what you pay to import and what you are paid to export is where solar economics are actually decided.

Expected performance

The system is estimated to generate approximately 6,348 kWh a year.

The design calculations put self-consumption at around 63% of generation without storage. With the 10 kWh battery included, those same calculations estimated roughly 3,995 kWh a year self-consumed, and around 80% independence from grid electricity against the assumed consumption profile.

Those are design figures, not measurements. Real generation and real savings move with weather, with how much electricity the building actually uses, and with how the battery is set up and operated.

Equipment and warranties

The system uses AIKO panels and Anker SOLIX storage throughout. The specified equipment carries a 15-year panel product warranty and a 30-year panel performance warranty, with 10 years on both the inverter and the battery.

Warranty length is worth reading properly: a product warranty covers the panel itself, while a performance warranty covers how much output it still produces decades in.

The result

A 7.125 kWp array with 10 kWh of storage behind it, designed so that the majority of what the roof generates is used on site rather than exported for a fraction of its value.