Greater Manchester

Fox ESS installer in Greater Manchester.

As a Fox ESS installer across Greater Manchester, we fit its home batteries in 3 towns, 24 to 32 miles from our Ellesmere Port base, with or without new panels, and as a retrofit beside the solar you already have.

Get a free quote Ask about Fox ESS
Towns covered
3
From our base
24 to 32 miles
VAT
0% until 31 March 2027
A Fox ESS inverter above three battery units on a block wall, every isolator labelled
Fox ESS, fitted by us

In short

Fox ESS builds hybrid inverters and the high-voltage EP batteries that sit under them. Across Greater Manchester a south-facing roof makes between 882 kWh (Stockport) and 926 kWh (Altrincham) 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

Which way the roof faces
Roof pitch
Shading

02Your house

£120 a month
Home during the day?
Book a survey with these figures

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

Used in the house70% Exported30%

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.

Book a survey with these figures How we size a system
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.

Greater Manchester in figures

What a battery has to work with in Greater Manchester.

  • 882 to 926 kWh per kWp a yearA south-facing roof, from Stockport to Altrincham (PVGIS, each town’s own coordinates). May to July make about 37% of that, December and January about 6%.
  • 62% live in a houseAround the centres of our 3 towns in 2021, 131,623 households between them (Census): a garage, utility room or sheltered wall is usually where the battery goes.
  • 47% 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.
  • 24% 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: Greater Manchester.

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 Greater Manchester.

  • Of our 3 towns in Greater Manchester, 0 are on SP Energy Networks’ SP Manweb network, 3 on Electricity North West. Each town page names its own.

    spenergynetworks.opendatasoft.com · electricitynorthwest.opendatasoft.com

  • A 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 Greater Manchester town we cover.

Each town’s own page carries its yield, its network and its planning authority. Nearest first.

Solar for the same roofs: solar panels in Altrincham · solar panels in Manchester · solar panels in Stockport.

Fox ESS · Greater Manchester

Fox ESS in Greater Manchester: what people ask.

If yours isn’t here, give us a ring and ask, or see every question.

Yes: in all 3 towns on our map for the region, from Altrincham (24 miles from our base) to Stockport (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 6% 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 Greater Manchester

Start here

Ask about Fox ESS in Greater Manchester.

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.

Tell us about your roof

What are you after?

Or call 0330 133 6441

Thanks — we have it.

It’s with us now, and we aim to reply within a couple of hours.

  • Takes about a minute
  • You get a person, not a brochure
  • No obligation, and no visit until you ask for one