9.6KW Solar with 8.2kWh Fox Cube Battery

Full Installation Walkthrough

This project in Ingleby Barwick involved the installation of a substantial 9.6KW solar array for a modern family home with high electricity consumption. The homeowner had recently switched to an electric vehicle and a heat pump, which had significantly increased their electricity bills. They approached ALPS Electrical looking for a solar and battery solution that would offset as much of this increased consumption as possible while providing a strong financial return on investment.

Following our standard process, we began with a comprehensive site survey. The property is a large four-bedroom detached house on one of the newer estates in Ingleby Barwick, featuring a south-east facing main roof and a smaller south-west facing garage roof. After analysing the roof dimensions, pitch angle and shading profile using our PV design software, we determined that 22 Jinko Tiger Neo 430W panels could be accommodated across the two roof faces, delivering a combined system capacity of 9.6KW.

The Jinko Tiger Neo 430W was selected for this project because of its industry-leading efficiency rating and excellent performance in low-light conditions. This matters in the North East of England where we experience more overcast days than southern counties, and panels that maintain strong output in diffuse light deliver significantly better annual yields than cheaper alternatives that only perform well in direct sunshine.

Scaffolding was erected around both the main house and the garage to provide safe working platforms for our installation team. We always plan our scaffold layouts to allow efficient movement of panels from ground level to roof height, which reduces installation time and minimises the risk of accidental panel damage during handling.

The mounting system installation took the best part of a full day. Each roof hook was positioned directly over a rafter and sealed with a proprietary flashing kit to maintain the weatherproof integrity of the roof. The aluminium mounting rails were then levelled across the hooks, creating a perfectly flat plane for the panels even though the roof tiles beneath are not perfectly uniform. This attention to detail during the mounting phase is what ensures a clean, professional finish that looks as good in ten years as it does on day one.

The panels were lifted onto the roof and secured into the clamp system in a carefully planned sequence that allows each panel to be safely positioned without our installers needing to lean over previously installed modules. Health and safety is never an afterthought at ALPS Electrical; it is built into every stage of our installation methodology from the initial scaffold design through to the final panel placement.

Inside the property, our electricians installed the FOX ESS 8KW hybrid inverter in the utility room, directly adjacent to the main consumer unit. The inverter was mounted on a dedicated backboard with appropriate cable management to keep all AC and DC cabling neatly organised and accessible for future servicing. The 8.2kWh Fox Cube battery was wall-mounted below the inverter, creating a compact and visually tidy energy hub.

The DC wiring from the roof panels was routed through the loft space in protective conduit, entering the property through a dedicated roof tile vent that was sealed with a weatherproof grommet. We split the 22 panels across two MPPT strings to optimise generation across the two different roof orientations, allowing the south-east and south-west facing arrays to operate independently at their respective optimal voltages without one face dragging down the performance of the other.

Full electrical testing was carried out including open circuit voltage checks on each string, insulation resistance tests, earth continuity verification and commissioning of the inverter through the Fox Cloud platform. The system was registered with MCS and the appropriate DNO notification was submitted to Northern Powergrid.

During the customer handover, we demonstrated the Fox Cloud monitoring app, explained how to interpret the generation, consumption, battery and grid import and export data, and provided guidance on optimising the system settings for different tariff structures. The homeowner was already on a time-of-use tariff, and we configured the battery to charge from cheap overnight grid electricity as a backup for cloudy days when solar generation alone might not fill the battery.

The projected annual generation for this 9.6KW system is approximately 8,500kWh, which combined with the 8.2kWh battery storage will offset a significant proportion of the household electricity consumption including the heat pump and EV charging. Based on current electricity prices and the Smart Export Guarantee rate, we estimated a payback period of approximately six years, after which the homeowner will enjoy decades of virtually free electricity from their investment.