Cheshire
Fox ESS installer in Cheshire and North-East Wales.
As a Fox ESS installer across Cheshire, we fit its home batteries in 21 towns, under 2 to 32 miles from our Ellesmere Port base, with or without new panels, and as a retrofit beside the solar you already have.
In short
Fox ESS builds hybrid inverters and the high-voltage EP batteries that sit under them. Across Cheshire a south-facing roof makes between 884 kWh (Macclesfield) and 971 kWh (Neston) a year per kWp, and VAT on a battery from one supplier-installer is 0% to the end of March 2027.
Sources: fox-ess.uk · PVGIS 5.2 · HMRC VAT Notice 708/6 (energy-saving materials)
The roof studio
Turn the house, fill the roof.
A Cheshire semi on a turntable. Drag it round, then tell it about your roof and your house — the panels, the battery, the current running through it and the numbers all move together.
01Your roof
02Your house
Estimated generation
3,870
kWh a year
Estimated saving
£834
a year, saved and earned
Estimated payback
10.1
years
System size
4.40 kWp
Panels
10
Your use covered
58%
Of what the roof generates
Worked out for a typical Cheshire roof at the pitch and aspect you picked, on a unit rate of 28p and an export rate of 6.5p — rates this tool assumes, dated September 2026, rather than any tariff you have been offered. Nothing here is a quotation: your roof, your shading and how much electricity you use while the sun is up are what the survey settles.
Take the figures with you.
Copy what the studio worked out for your roof, or send it straight to us with a survey request. None of it is a quote: the survey replaces every figure above with your own.
Every assumption behind the numbers
- Unit rate
- 28p for every unit (kWh) you’d otherwise buy from the grid.
- Export rate
- 6.5p for every unit the house and battery can’t use and send back to the grid.
- Your yearly use
- Worked out from your monthly bill at the 28p unit rate, after a standing charge of about 36p a day — and never less than 1,100 kWh a year.
- What a panel makes
- Each panel is 440 W (0.44 kWp). A kWp makes 880 kWh a year facing south, 760 facing east–west and 620 facing north-ish. For this part of Cheshire the EU’s PVGIS model gives 951 for a south roof at a typical pitch — the studio stays below it.
- Pitch
- Shallow (28°) makes 95% of a typical 38° roof; steep (48°) makes 97%.
- Shading
- A bit of shade costs 10%; heavy shade costs 24%.
- How many panels
- Two rows, growing with your bill from three columns to eight — six panels up to sixteen.
- How much you use yourself
- The share of what the roof makes that the house uses: 30% if you’re usually out, 46% in and out, 62% usually home. A battery adds 24 points and a car charger 6, up to 86% — and never more than 62% of your whole year’s use.
- Saving
- The units you use yourself at 28p, plus the units you export at 6.5p.
- Payback
- The yearly saving set against what a system like the one you’ve built typically costs to install: a base figure, an amount for each panel, and more again for a battery or a charger. The answer is held between 4 and 25 years. The studio never shows that cost, because only a survey can price your roof — so treat the years as a rough guide, not a figure to hold us to.
Monthly and yearly sunshine for this area: PVGIS 5.2, EU Joint Research Centre. The unit rate, the export rate and the standing charge are the studio’s own assumptions, set in September 2026 — not a tariff we have quoted you. Your own rates are on your bill, and a survey works from those.
Cheshire in figures
What a battery has to work with in Cheshire and North-East Wales.
- 884 to 971 kWh per kWp a yearA south-facing roof, from Macclesfield to Neston (PVGIS, each town’s own coordinates). May to July make about 37% of that, December and January about 7%.
- 87% live in a houseAround the centres of our 21 towns in 2021, 431,597 households between them (Census): a garage, utility room or sheltered wall is usually where the battery goes.
- 67% own their homeA battery is a fixed part of the house, so it is the owner’s decision, and it pays back to whoever pays the bills.
- 40% have two or more carsWhere there is a car on the drive, the battery and a charger share the same surplus and are best designed together.
Sources: ONS Census 2021 (TS044, TS045, TS054) via Nomis · PVGIS 5.2. The region in full: Cheshire.
From the manufacturer
What the Fox ESS system is.
Every line is the manufacturer’s own published figure, with its source.
- K-series inverterSingle-phase hybrid, published in 7, 8, 9 and 10 kW, with three or four MPPTs. fox-ess.uk
- System typesDC-coupled for new installations, AC-coupled for retrofits, battery-ready. fox-ess.uk
- MonitoringFoxCloud 2.0 in a browser or the app, with a five-second data refresh and work modes including self-use, feed-in priority, back-up and peak shaving. fox-ess.uk
- Inverter enclosureIP65, natural cooling, −25 °C to +60 °C with derating from +45 °C. fox-ess.com
- EP batteries in parallelUp to four units in parallel; a junction box is required for two to four units. fox-ess.uk
- EP battery depth of discharge90 %. fox-ess.uk
Every published figure, and the photographs of our own installs: Fox ESS.
The wires
The network paperwork across Cheshire and North-East Wales.
Of our 21 towns in Cheshire, 17 are on SP Energy Networks’ SP Manweb network, 1 on Electricity North West, and 3 sit across the boundary or on its edge, where the distributor ID in the MPAN on the bill settles it (13 is SP Manweb, 16 is Electricity North West). Each town page names its own.
spenergynetworks.opendatasoft.com · electricitynorthwest.opendatasoft.comA battery that can export is a generator in the network’s eyes. A single-phase system under 16A per phase (3.68kW) is notified under G98; anything larger goes through a G99 application, which the operator has to approve before the system is switched on.
spenergynetworks.co.uk · enwl.co.uk
We send the paperwork for you. How G98 and G99 work.
On the survey
Fitting a Fox ESS battery: what we check.
- The inverter and the batteries go on one wall run, with the DC and AC isolators between them and every one labelled.
- Two or more EP batteries in parallel need the Fox junction box, so leave wall space for it beside the string.
- The inverter is IP65 and derates above +45 °C, so a wall that bakes all afternoon is the wrong wall.
- The fixings and what is behind the render are part of the design.
Fox ESS batteries, explained · Adding a battery to the solar you already have
Town by town
Fox ESS in every Cheshire town we cover.
Each town’s own page carries its yield, its network and its planning authority. Nearest first.
- Battery storage in Ellesmere Portunder 2 miles · Cheshire West and Chester
- Battery storage in Helsby6 miles · Cheshire West and Chester
- Battery storage in Neston6 miles · Cheshire West and Chester
- Battery storage in Chester7 miles · Cheshire West and Chester
- Battery storage in Frodsham8 miles · Cheshire West and Chester
- Battery storage in Runcorn8 miles · Halton
- Battery storage in Widnes9 miles · Halton
- Battery storage in Mold13 miles · Flintshire
- Battery storage in Tarporley13 miles · Cheshire West and Chester
- Battery storage in Warrington15 miles · Warrington
- Battery storage in Northwich17 miles · Cheshire West and Chester
- Battery storage in Winsford17 miles · Cheshire West and Chester
- Battery storage in Wrexham17 miles · Wrexham
- Battery storage in Middlewich20 miles · Cheshire East
- Battery storage in Nantwich22 miles · Cheshire East
- Battery storage in Knutsford22 miles · Cheshire East
- Battery storage in Crewe24 miles · Cheshire East
- Battery storage in Sandbach25 miles · Cheshire East
- Battery storage in Wilmslow28 miles · Cheshire East
- Battery storage in Congleton30 miles · Cheshire East
- Battery storage in Macclesfield32 miles · Cheshire East
Solar for the same roofs: solar panels in Ellesmere Port · solar panels in Helsby · solar panels in Neston · solar panels in Chester · solar panels in Frodsham · solar panels in Runcorn.
Fox ESS · Cheshire
Fox ESS in Cheshire: what people ask.
If yours isn’t here, give us a ring and ask, or see every question.
Yes: in all 21 towns on our map for the region, from Ellesmere Port (under 2 miles from our base) to Macclesfield (32 miles). Each town has its own battery page with its yield and network.
Usually. Fox ESS publishes its K-series for DC-coupled new systems and AC-coupled retrofits. We look at the existing installation before recommending anything.
December and January make only about 7% of a south-facing roof’s year across the region, so in midwinter the battery earns its keep on a time-of-use tariff, charging when grid electricity is cheapest; in May to July, about 37% of the year, it stores your own generation.
Yes. To the network operator an exporting battery counts as a generator: a G98 notification for a small single-phase system and a G99 application for anything bigger. We send it.
Not until 31 March 2027 for most homes: a battery supplied and fitted by one firm is zero-rated, with or without panels, and the rate goes to 5% after that.
More
Fox ESS elsewhere, and the rest of the kit.
Fox ESS in our other regions
Also fitted in Cheshire
- Tesla Powerwall installer in CheshireHome battery with the solar inverter built in
- EcoFlow installer in CheshirePowerOcean: hybrid inverter over stacked packs
- Hypervolt installer in CheshireHome EV charger with solar-only charging modes
- Home battery storage installationHow the survey and the design run
Start here
Ask about Fox ESS in Cheshire.
Tell us the postcode and roughly what you use. We’ll tell you honestly whether the roof is worth doing — and if it isn’t, that’s a perfectly good answer too.
- Takes about a minute
- You get a person, not a brochure
- No obligation, and no visit until you ask for one

